Month SIX: half a year and counting!

Six months. There was a point around month 3 or 4 where I didn't think I'd survive to this point, but lo and behold, I have, and more importantly, so have you! The other night you were eating for the thousandth time and as you laid upon my chest, I recalled the first time you laid there. Covered in goo, slightly blue and cone headed as can be! I remember thinking how tiny you were and how tiny you would always be. Now, these last few days, I've found myself looking at you thinking, how have you gotten so big? Aren't you supposed to be my little baby forever? Where has the time gone?

I'm tempted to be upset at myself for not savoring your infancy as much as I can. However, when I look back, I realize it's impossible to keep everything as perfectly in my memory as I wish I could. But the things I've held on to, I won't ever forget. You can count on that!

Thank you for six wonderfully challenging months of motherhood. I can't wait for the next six. 

Month Six Highlights:

-You perfected your rolling skills. Front to back, back to front. It ain't no thang. However, you still like to pretend you're stuck sometimes just so I will come get you. And it always works... Sucker is my middle name!

-Guess how your sleep is? Sucky? Great guess! If anything, it's worse, because you have started moving in your sleep more which makes you nock into me or your father and then you wake up. And if you don't wake up I sure do. Thanks... We've brought your pack n play back out and hope to slowly transition you into it over the next couple of weeks. We'll see though... My breath is not held.

-You can hold yourself up on the coffee table, ottoman, and couch, but you get excited, jump and then fall down. It's dangerously cute!

-You can scoot backwards by pushing up on your hands. But when you aren't doing that, you push up on your toes (which lifts your little booty in the air) and jam your face into the ground. Hopefully you learn to do both at once soon. 

-Your favorite trick is to bang toys as hard as you can on your high chair tray, then throw them on the ground... Making your dad and me pick up ten thousand toys a night. 

-You nap in your car seat very well, but have come to hate being put into it. However, a little music making toy or song and dance by your father distracts you long enough to get you buckled.

-You got your first ear infection and bout of bronchitis... It was no fun. So much coughing and fussing.

-You also got your first tooth!!!! It's still low on your gums but does damage to my tender fingers! And I think it's a shark tooth. Because it is pointy.... 

-Ash Wednesday mass at daddy's school was great! You got your ashes and then promptly wiped them off with your crazy hands... 

-You celebrated your first valentines day and went to your (and my) first ordination Mass! Congrats Br. James!

-You helped mama and daddy celebrate our birthdays! Your gifts were great! You got me a fussy baby with a cold and you got your daddy a fussy baby with a tooth coming in! You're so sweet! 

-When you're sitting and want to reach a toy far away, you kinda do this splits thing with one foot behind and one foot in front of you. I think you'll start crawling from a sitting position instead of on your belly. 

-You love when people clap for you! And you try super hard to emulate it but usually just end up waving your hands around like a crazy woman.

-Oma and grandpa came to visit for a few days over valentines day weekend. It was a blast as always!

Stats: the doctors office messed up your appointment time so we have to wait until next week to get your stats... I'm not angry at all.... 

-Weight: 20 lbs 2 oz. 95%. Your comfort zone.

-Height: 27 1/2 in. 90%. 

-Head Circumfrence: 17in. 70%. Finally your head is catching up to your thighs!

-Shots: Daddy got to see you get shots for the first time. He agreed it was no fun but also that you get really cute when you start crying after a delayed reaction!

-Comments from Dr. G: You're still way cute and super friendly! She's always amazed how developmentally ahead you are in certain areas and thinks you'll be an early walker for sure!

Some Photos:

Perfect Mercy

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful"You see, then, that Christ has two natures in one Person, one which always was and another which began to be. And according to that nature which was eternally his, he always knew everything. But according to that which began in time, he experienced many things in time. In this way he began to know the miseries of the flesh, by that mode of cognition which the weakness of the flesh instructs. Our first parents were wiser and happier when they did not know that which they came to know only foolishly and in wretchedness. But God their Creator, seeking what was lost, came down in mercy in pursuit of his wretched creatures, to where they had miserably fallen. He wanted to experience for himself what they were suffering because they had gone against his will. He came not out of a curiosity like theirs, but out of a wonderful charity. He did not intend to remain wretched among them, but to free those who were wretched as one made merciful. Therefore Christ was made merciful, not with that mercy which he who remained happy had had from eternity, but with that mercy which he discovered in our fleshly garb as he himself went through our misery. -St. Bernard 

This morning, as I prayed through the gospel reading, I must admit, I found myself getting angry. Give and you'll be rewarded?! Oh really? Then why do I feel like I give and give and give, yet I still struggle under the weight of the same crosses day after day? I must have written the word "why" a thousand times in my journal. And then I read the quote above...

Slap.

Christ took on flesh, experienced the misery of human life (in the worst possible way), all for the sake of offering me the hope I lacked this morning. Christ doesn't just offer us perfect mercy from His seat in Heaven; no, he offers mercy that has carried every cross. He gives mercy that can relate to every struggle. He gives mercy that perfects the imperfect. 

So when I give and give and feel as if all my struggles aren't being received, I need only to remember one thing: Mercy.

This Cross

Last night, I stood in our kitchen, before putting Cana to bed, and prayed over my husband. He prayed over me and together we laid our hands in our squirming girl and asked God to bless her sleep. 

Frankie was finishing dishes. Cana was starving. And I was ready to relax. But we made time. Everything stopped for a minute so we could pray together as a family. Ideally, we would sit in a space designated for prayer, all distractions would be gone, and it would last more than a few minutes. But last night, that sole minute of quick prayer in the kitchen before bed was enough. It is exactly what our family needed. 

Since we got married, we've strived to incorporate praying together into our daily life. Honestly though, we've failed quite often. But we aren't prefect, so it's ok. As long as we continuously try, right? And that's the beauty of Lent. 

Lent gives us a chance to restart. To change. To convert. To pick up our cross, again, continue walking toward Christ. Just as Christ calls us to do in today's Gospel reading (Luke 9:22-25). 

I'm so glad I've been graced with a husband who is always there to help me carry my cross. When I fall, he helps me up. When I stray, he points me in the right direction. Our family is better because of him and his unending desire for Heaven.