Life: Bastille Day

It's a clear summer's evening sky. The overcast of the last few days has given us a respite for the evening so the stars can twinkle upon us.

It sounds nice, yes? But I know it's muggy out there and I cannot help but ponder why it is that summer and winter seem to drag on so, whilst autumn and spring flee after just a couple of weeks. Didn't these kinder seasons seem to linger longer when we were young?

I was holding Rebekah this evening, trying to soothe her; too tired to rest, too hungry to eat really. I suppose it gets that way sometimes when you're so new to this world and still trying to figure everything out.

She's begun to smile beneficently upon us at random moments. Which is a good thing, as we were close to putting her up on Craig's List if we didn't get some reciprocation soon. You only know the full love of your parents when you yourself are suffering through those first few months of feeding and soothing, with pretty much only soiled diapers in return. And even that's not all that bad, hard though it may be to make getting shat upon as a wondrous thing.

Sleep deprivation will inevitably do that to a person.

But as I was saying: I was holding her, looking at her as she belted out her cries and I flashed back to the drive to the hospital with Amy a few weeks ago. Headed for the c-section, she seemed to know it was time. Our little breech girl started hopping up and down in Amy's tummy, her little head pointed in the wrong direction.

"It's the other way!" I called.

That was two months ago. In that time, there've been two biopsies (both clear. Yay!), we found out we had termites, we got treated for termites, five different family members came to visit, Amy's recovered from the abdominal surgery, the cars have been in the shop, the roof got redone (two days home from the hospital), the siding got redone (one week home from the hospital), and Reed's had a full neurological work-up of MRI, EEG and EKG done (all clear. Thank you, Lord.). It's the 'little' things—like having children—that really let you know how fast life is happening. They give you daily markers of time's progress. They grow. They learn.

And one day, they smile at you.