baby

Note: When migrating my blog over from Lifeisaprayer.com, I dug up a number of unpublished posts that I had completely forgotten about; this was one such post that I had written just prior to the birth of our first child (who is now three, and reminds us of the fact at least twice per hour—me: "How did you know how to do [some incredible new skill]?" - him: "Becawse I'm thWEEEE!"). I originally wrote this post in November of 2012, but am finally publishing it in 2016!

In the past few months, I've had much occasion to think over the words of the Our Father. Specifically, I've been thinking a lot about the relationship of a father and his children, and the love of a father.

In the Our Father, we hear of some of the traits of fatherly love:

I've been thinking about starting a Tumblr account for some of the many Pro Tips™ I'm learning from raising a baby. I'm sure there are about 10,000 more that I will learn in the next month alone.

Like "when your baby boy starts peeing during a diaper change, you can either let the stream hit the nice carpet and cause a stain, or use your hand (which is much easier to clean) as a deflection shield to keep everything in the waterproof changing pad liner." Apparently this also makes your wife laugh.

It's like babies know when the worst time is to spit up, go potty, and scream—and intentionally do those things at that time. I think they're just playing us parents all for fools.

But they're so darn cute, it's impossible to get angry.

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:13)

Yesterday my wife and I experienced the birth of our first child, who was born just one day prior to his due date, and is as beautiful as any child I've ever known. But even more so because he's mine!

Labor is an emotional roller coaster, and I was incredibly privileged to be with Natalie throughout the entire process: from the early stages at home to the final push in the hospital. Especially in the last moments, my ability to love and experience God's love was radically altered.

Seeing mommy's radiant face moments after the birth, hearing the first gargling cries of our new child, and experiencing all the beautiful moments of agony and ecstasy involved in bringing the baby into our world has given me a new perspective on love.

This is old news to some, but my wife and I are expecting a baby early in this new year. Please say a prayer that everything goes well! (No, we don't know the gender; and no, we will not be sharing pictures or other info publicly at this time, Mr. Zuckerberg's thoughts on privacy notwithstanding!)

On another note, I have at least five large bits of writing that I'm still working on—a photography book, a few articles and tutorials for this site, and some other things. Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to get thoughts on paperscreen soon!

For now, check out some of these popular bits from 2012 you may have missed:

This week I've been visiting doctors, getting checkups, getting tests, and generally being a lab rat. My health has been better, so any prayers you could spare could be appreciated... but enough about me!

Since I've been feeling not-so-good lately, and since the whole HHS mandate fiasco's been so annoying to me, I've felt relatively pessimistic in the past week.

Well, during one of the many waiting room visits (I hesitate to call them doctor visits, since I usually spend more time in the waiting room ;-), I heard a lullaby play over the hospital's PA system. Nobody seemed to notice it, but I asked one of the receptionists what the lullaby meant (I figured maybe it was employee nap time or something like that, being 3 in the afternoon...).

When she told me that a baby was just born in the labor and delivery area, a little tear caught in my eye. What a great thing to have happen while I was sitting there!

A few days later, I was back in the waiting area for a while, and just before I was called to get a test done, I heard the lullaby again (awesome!)... and about a minute later, another lullaby!