"Suddenly something that was, all at once, pain and longing and adoring had welled up in him, almost choking him. He had wanted to tell someone, but he had no words, inarticulate in the pain and glory..." ~ A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken

Tonight we are enjoying the last night of our vacation. The kids are asleep, the sandy shoes have been shaken out, and the good desserts we've just eaten are giving us the gift of full bellies on which to rest. The condo is being lulled to slumber by the dishwasher and dryer that will return plates to stock cabinets and twenty-five dollar pool towels to tiled bathrooms to await the next visitors ready for resting and relaxing. Tonight as we said our bedtime prayers with our beautiful children, they fell asleep in our arms. It is an incredibly rare thing for this to happen. Soren (a.k.a. Miss Independent) normally asks us to go to our own beds for she wants to sleep. Joseph takes a little more coaxing with bumping (a McLaughlin family rocking-to-sleep tradition), darkness, and quiet. But tonight, we were so long-winded with our prayers of gratitude that they were snoring by our "Amen". The scriptures say (in Psalm 63) that "on my bed I remember You" and, tonight, I most certainly did.

Dear Soren & Joseph,

My hands and my heart are very full. Watching the two of you together has been my greatest joy. This is not to diminish the joy I’ve felt being your daddy’s wife, but, you see, your lives are an extension of that very joy. What a month it’s been since you entered the world Joseph!

Soren, I’m amazed at how naturally you’ve taken on the role as big sister. You are so tender and affectionate. You speak in a high voice saying “it’s okay baby Joseph” at every cry and are quick to get Joseph’s binky, throw away diapers, help me hang and fold clothes, and, in general, just enjoy your little brother. Within moments of coming home, you suddenly seemed bigger and older with my having been made aware again of just how small a new baby is. I have to admit there is some grief in this awareness that time is flying and my baby-Soren is now little-girl-Soren. Coupled with that though is the reality that every season keeps getting better and I enjoy you so immensely.

Joseph, you are a sweet little man and it is with delight that I savor your lovable noises, expressions, and the rolls on your soft skin. So much of my day is spent nursing you, kissing you, holding your tiny feet, and pressing your cheek to mine. I think about my own mother and grown brother and it grieves me to think that there will ever be a day where I could be in the same room with you and have to withhold this kind of affection because you’re an adult. I try my best to relish the moment now and not let that overwhelming fear permeate these days.

These have been the richest days of my life and these have also been days that I’ve had to truly depend on your daddy and on the grace of God. While I want you to know the thrill and deep happiness I’ve had in these days, I also want you to know some of the more difficult moments that lie beside them so that when you enter this season yourself, you know that if you feel there are hard moments, they will never diminish the love you have for your family. I want you to know, with my deep love for you being evidence, that wonderful and tiring moments can co-exist. It seems odd to me that God would allow the first days after a baby is born to be spent sleep-deprived, hormonally-shifting, and question-ridden. It seems like I often wish that I was caught up on rest and my body and emotions were leveled out as to best enjoy these times. I have in my mind that if I really was enjoying you both, I wouldn’t feel like any moments were exhausting. But, is it possible that God would be teaching me in these moments about the complexity of each life He’s created? Perhaps if I had everything figured out, I wouldn’t depend on Him or on the community around me to figure parenthood – and life – out. While I say that I wish this time would slow down so that I could savor the short newborn stage, what better way to do so than to be awakened in the middle of the night in my most fatigued state as the rest of the world sleeps so that I may spend quiet slow-moving moments nursing my infant?

Perhaps God knows best and will continue to give me glimpses of His grace as I trust Him. Perhaps instead of feeling guilt-ridden when I feel that a moment is difficult, I could open my mind and heart to the possibility that therein lies part of God's design - relying on Him, on my husband, on my community. Perhaps, parenthood requires so much vulnerability that without these tension-filled thoughts and emotions, I would miss part of the gift. I want you to know that if you wonder these things someday, it's okay. And it's okay not because everybody else feels them, but because, I believe, it's God's way of teaching you early on in the life of your children that you need Him.

(Joseph Winslette McLaughlin born Dec 21, 2009 @ 5:26pm; 8 lbs 14 oz and 20 1/2 in long; pic @ 1 week old - 9 lbs 11 oz!!!)

I was privileged with Joseph to have a natural birth again. Believe me, during the day this time around, there were more times than not I would have chosen a word other than “privileged”. I had to look at the bracelet I was wearing during the day over and over – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). I’ve come to believe even in a week’s time with Joseph that his attitude during his entrance into the world is much like his personality – even-keeled, laidback, and wanting to know what the big hurry is. He is content to snuggle (and nurse) all the time. Oh, how I love and adore this little man already.

I recently read a beautiful article from The National Catholic Weekly. It moved me so very deeply as one article focused on a meditation on birth and the spiritual life.* When referring to birth, the author writes “…it does not allow diversions; it is more glorious and messy, more trying and transformative than a person might suspect. Basically, it is a lot like prayer.” She goes on later to write that “one reason that few people take seriously the physical reality of giving birth as a teaching ground for receiving grace is that sanitized hospital births, with epidurals at the ready, change the experience of giving birth from a gift received to an event managed.” Yes, I realize that’s a very strong statement, but one I’ve come to believe myself. (And, as she points out, women must tell their own stories – especially when it comes to complicated or tragic ends.) While pain brings discomfort and fear, I think my greater fear was always missing the opportunity to feel this amazing rite of passage. To be fully immersed in the moment that my children entered the world. To understand what it is that women all over the world and through the ages have experienced. To think of it as something to “get through” instead of something in which to deeply plunge scared me. Natural birth required the greatest of me – trust, surrender, and awareness in full. “How different it would be if we saw childbirth as something to receive, rather than something to soldier through” she wrote.

Psalm 139:13-15 (NIV) says “For you created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.”

I’m no bible scholar, but I do love to read up on the back-story on passages. It’s amazing to find out that the phrase “wonderfully made” is actually defined as “to be beyond one’s power” and “to be difficult to understand” meaning that we are made with so much complexity and extraordinary detail that only God could truly know us. Also, when the passage refers to our “frame”, it’s referring to our “power, bones, and might” – our entire being. And the “secret place” to which the passage refers is defined as somewhere mystical and deep within the earth. I’m moved by these thoughts of sweet little Joseph being knit together within me, so complex that even I cannot comprehend him, and so divinely put together that it’s more mysterious than the center of the earth.

The choice to have a natural birth – and God’s gift that there were no complications requiring me to choose/have otherwise, I believe, allowed me to enter into the sacred process of attaching to my beautiful children. I do believe that childbirth is as the author writes “a transformative experience, the edge of life and death, the play of wind and breath, the shock of pain and joy. It is where a woman is given a new gift: a new relationship with God, her husband and their child – practice in receiving grace.”

* Excerpts from “A Fiery Gift” by Susan Windley-Daoust

It should come as no surprise to any of my friends and family that I catch moonbeams, store them in jars, and then look at them nostalgically. I’ve always been quite melancholy this way – celebrating with glee small joys and instantly recognizing with weeping the fragility of life the next moment.

These last weeks of pregnancy have been a beautiful and bittersweet time as I celebrate the arrival of one new soul into the world as we know it. I remember grieving before Soren was born that my time with Jeff would be different. I was mourning the loss of “two of us”. This time is no different as I’m mourning the loss of “the three of us”. Yes, I know, I know, life is about to afford us a beautiful blessing, but this, my friends, is the plight of a melancholy soul. Every new chapter means closing the last one.

Last night we enjoyed a candlelit dinner at home to celebrate “the three of us”. I cooked while Jeff and Soren put the ornaments on the tree and my heart was very happy. We sang Christmas songs and watched the flakes flutter out the window. That sounds too good to be true – actually, it kinda was. Jeff and I sang Christmas carols while Soren yelled at us to be “all done” and screamed “more Miley Cyrus”. Apparently, she doesn’t find “Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming” as musically captivating as “Party in the USA”. Still, it was a night at home, just the 3 of us and my heart was full.

In Genesis, the bible speaks of childbirth. (“… I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.” ~ Genesis 3:16) Before I was a mom, I always figured that this passage was referring to a physical pain. I understand that pain having had a natural and wonderful drug-free birth with Soren. But, watching Soren develop in the last couple of years shows me that this passage is much more.

Every time Soren enters a new stage, birthed, if you will, into a new season, she leaves the old behind. It is not so much the pain of the childbirth as it is the letting go of the opposite that accompanies it. Even now as I’m overjoyed at the thought of delivering our precious miracle in a matter of days, I feel grief at the thought of my first separation from the baby – the first of many times of letting go, I’m sure. It comes as no surprise to me that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit when her baby leapt in her womb. To feel a baby kick within is indescribable and unforgettable. I’ve spoken with women in their 80’s who have not forgotten the feeling or joy.

I’ve felt a special connection to Mary this season as I recognize the merging of something from heaven and something from earth as a part of me. Yes, I realize I’m not carrying the Messiah, but the fact that God would orchestrate human life and use me as a vessel is mind-boggling, humbling, and extraordinarily other-worldly.

It is with joy that I continue this blog to celebrate the merging of heaven and earth in daily moments. Thank you for walking alongside us in these times.

Life in the McLaughlin home

Hi blog-readers! I've been a stranger to my blog lately. Don't worry though - I'm still obsessively documenting my kids' lives through Facebook, imovie, YouTube, journals, and extensive picture taking. Ha.

So, here is one of my favorite pictures of Soren from a couple of weeks back. This was on our way to ride a balloon at Conner Prairie. Click here for a video of the experience. It was a total blast!

Soren will be 2 on Monday and I can't believe it. I can't believe that she'll be 2 already and I also can't believe that God has given Jeff and me the incredible pleasure of raising such a delightful and bright little sweetie pie. She is making us laugh, making us recalibrate our lives. Here is another shot of her at her birthday party - a princess with a tool bench. Perfect, right? Happy birthday Soren!!!

We are about one month away from welcoming baby #2 (boy? girl?) into our lives. We're getting very excited. The thought of having another makes a month seem very close, but the thought of being pregnant for another month makes it seem a tad far away. :) Here are some shots that my close friend Melissa

(http://melissahanleyphotography.com) just took as we approach the big day.

I've felt great this pregnancy, but also learned that being pregnant while having other children is more tiring than the first time around! Soren has kept me hopping!

While I didn't swim, walk, do yoga, and eat as many v

eggies as I did while I was pregnant with Soren, I did instead have dance parties, cook and clean for and after play groups, burn calories kissing, hugging, and swinging my little gal instead. I suppose that counts for something, right?

Caring for a toddler while being pregnant has taught me a good deal about what people are capable of while running on fumes. I'm pretty sure I've put out multiple fires while bra-less, having only one contact in, and trying to get us both out of the door to go somewhere - and that's just before breakfast!

Soren has been such a precious joy and I'm thankful for the privilege of staying home with her. While it is a luxury to be home, Jeff and I have enjoyed all we've learned in the process of making choices to ensure that we're able to be home as much as possible. We pray for guidance within these choices as we cut coupons, skip having cable/DVR/etc., eating out often, etc. We both value being present with our children and I know Jeff would do anything possible to make that happen. I married him loving his huge heart and I'm amazed watching it grow even bigger as his love for his family expands.

We'll keep you posted with news about our growing family!

Miss Soren Michelle McLaughlin

Let me share this beautiful picture with you that our friends from www.twiceshydesign.com shot at our friends' wedding. Can you say sassy??? (Double click to enlarge.)

The house is officially broken in!!!n

Today, we had our playgroup over here for some good ol' fashioned hangin' out and lunch. There was a lot of hugging, story time, laughing, and one SERIOUS picnic with lots of grilled cheese sandwiches!!! So much fun!