Category Archives: family
the second most important thing in my life
big news deserves a party
i’ve been working on a little project lately, one that’s kept me busy — inside and out — for the past five months.
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WE’RE HAVING A BABY!! (the obvious has to be stated shouted.)
through nearly six years of marriage, God has brought lee & i through ups and downs and developed our relationship into a “us” that gets better all the time. we worked through our initial parental hesitations and i faced my personal struggles, and we left the rest up to Him. His timing is perfect, as usual.
it’s been fun to share the news with family and friends personally, and enjoy each individual reaction and celebration periodically over the last few months. the first trimester was a breeze, with little to no morning sickness and normal energy levels. lee and i have spent the first half of the second trimester waiting eagerly for the emergence of a real pregnant belly. finally, this week, it feels like my baby bulge became a bona fide baby bump!
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we’ve been so anxious to find out if we are having a boy or girl, because referring to our unborn child as “the baby” was getting old, and “it’ was banned from discussions about our little bean. (lee coined “himher” as our preferred pronoun). i was hoping for a boy, but completely happy with the thought of a little girl to grow up alongside her cousin caris.
when it came time to discover the gender of our offspring, we wanted to share the news with our family and closest friends in person, just as we had with revealing the existence of the new life. because gender reveal parties are so popular right now, i had no shortage of adorable inspiration via the internet and pinterest. it was fun to piece together bits i liked with my own ideas.
i went with a black & white theme to highlight the Big Question, and served snacks to satisfy a variety of food cravings (one symptom of pregnancy i have definitely experienced).
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“salty” popcorn, black & white candy, and “chewy” chocolate marshmallows
“sour” pickle olive cheese rolls, “crunchy” chips & black bean dip, and “sweet” oreos
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i love any excuse to gather with my favorite people, but this occasion felt extra-special. i’m so grateful that we have supportive family and friends who love to celebrate life’s milestones with us.
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although only one of us likes surprises ( 
), i talked lee into letting the Big Reveal come with festive flair among our loved ones rather than a simple statement from an unfamiliar ultrasound technician. he loves me.
my dad came with us to view the sonogram and collect the pertinent intel, and then prepped the party reveal. waiting was hard, but totally worth it, in my opinion.
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after reading aloud the creative variety of name suggestions and taking the old wives tales survey to determine the “likely” gender, the party decorations became the revealing apparatus. everyone had a string to pull and their own shower of confetti!
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IT’S A BOY! — IT’S A BOY! — IT’S A BOY! — IT’S A BOY! — IT’S A BOY!
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our little man is due to arrive in late october, and we can’t wait to meet him.
hisses and whispers
you are a selfish, selfish person. i hear my thoughts as if they are being hissed in my ears. how can you let your frustrations rob the joy from beautiful new beginnings?
i stare at myself in the mirror and play the mind-game again. what if? suppose it happens tomorrow? what then? i squeeze my eyes shut in imagination and try to decipher my swirling emotions. fear? not quite. nervousness? only a little. excitement? dread? joy? sorrow? perhaps all of the above.
the part of my heart that throbs with the chronic dull pain wants no part it—the inevitable wringer of heart-wrenching grief traps that would surely lie in wait if we were to take that step. that piece of me would much rather decline the invitation for constant glaring reminders that someone is missing. woefully, unjustly absent.
then the sensible side of my spirit speaks up again in that unkind, berating tone. you can’t allow your disappointment over a trashed first draft to prevent you from writing an awesome second one. this is about building your family with your husband, not your lost moments with your mom.
but it’s about both. because a large part of me is convinced that as soon as i start preparing for kids of my own without being able to share it with my mother, that this shaky daily survival that i’ve established will be rocked again. i worry that i won’t be able to maintain the normal-ish, mostly happy existence that i’ve settled into over the past eighteen months. the very thought is enough to make me want to avoid the possibility altogether.
i thought the bliss from the birth of my precious, precious niece would help prove my pessimistic side wrong. and it did. kinda. but the thought of walking through that experience personally, and not just alongside my sister, still leaves me a little broken inside.
BUT
i still hope for new beginnings. i still dream of building a legacy with lee, and passing down the legacy handed to me. and i still believe my God will sustain me with the inexplicable joy amidst the sorrow that only He is capable of—in the same way he has always delivered before.
His whispers are louder than my hissing thoughts: “there is no way your hurt or dismay can rob the joy from the beautiful new beginnings I bring.”
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this post is a response to a challenge by jeff goins to write something dangerous, to share something scary. just write.
photo by haleigh russell
my new title
“so, what’s new with you?”
my answer to that casual question has been the same for the past seven weeks, and i imagine it will remain so for awhile. i’m no longer just a daughter, sister, wife.
“i’m an aunt!”
i don’t see my enthusiasm dying down any time soon. beautiful Caris Maryann is so adorably perfect i can hardly stand it!
my baby sister has a baby, now, and it’s still hard to believe we’re not kids anymore. but kel and jared are ready for parenthood. just look at the thrilled (and exhausted) new parents, eager to take their precious bundle home.
of course everyone is head-over-heels for her. grandpa dean, uncle b, great titu, and even willow can’t get enough.
even surrounded by all that adoration, it’s hard not to think that she deserves to be cuddled and loved by another pair of arms that will never hold her. admittedly, my niece’s arrival has been a sweet-and-sour emotional ride for me…..but as always, God’s grace allows the overwhelming joy not to be diminished in the slightest by the accompanying sorrow. i have no doubt caris will grow to cherish her titu‘s legacy as we do.
just so long as she knows who loves her most. judging by her cute onesie and emphatic fist pump, she does.
so that’s the most exciting thing to happen to me, lately. thanks for letting me share.
big sister
always laughing together
a Big Sister is supposed to play a certain role in the sibling dynamic. older brothers, too. but i’m a sister, so that’s what we’re talking about today.
role model. mentor. it’s practically become the definition of the title. i’m the one who guides and protects my little brother and sister when mom and dad can’t. that’s what the eldest sibling does.
- summer dayz
what i didn’t realize is that the job isn’t necessarily permanent. a Big Sister may be able to offer guidance based on her head start for awhile, but if she’s lucky, one day her younger siblings catch up.
they started to close in on my lead in our teens. in high school and college my brother and sister became two of my best friends as we shared more extracurricular activities, interests, inside jokes, and milestone moments.
- it’s too sunny in ihop
as we grew into adults, we tracked neck-and-neck as our relationship matured. i looked up to them as much as i hoped they had looked up to me growing up. i remember distinctly the first time i felt like bryan played the role of big brother to me, and have a vivid memory of the first time kelleigh gave me big sisterly advice.
while i absolutely love being able to go to my little bro and sis for support and wisdom, having my position in the lead overtaken was unsettling at first. i’m supposed to be the one out in front cutting through the wind resistance. now i’m drafting in their slipstream from time to time.
- lunch date
yesterday i was baby-things shopping with my expectant sister, and it was glaringly obvious that i’m quite unqualified to give any experiential counsel. as much as i’ve joked that i’m glad she’s going first on this one (which is another cerebral saga altogether), i felt like i was failing on my Big Sister duties.
this new dynamic with my brother and sister may be unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable for me, but i’m growing to appreciate it more all the time.
- all growed up
i’m so proud of you, bry and kel! and so grateful for you. i am a very lucky Big Sister.
five
reflecting on the past five years of marriage to my love has left me feeling grateful, amazed, content, supported, happy, secure, and loved. what more could a girl ask for?
especially when four of those five years have been spent in the trenches and aftermath of a war that cost us so dearly. certainly not what these newlyweds were expecting following a carefree, playful, fairy tale road leading up to marriage.
but i truly believe we are stronger for it. and i’m only inspired to be a better wife after seeing the way lee has served me so selflessly through it all.
happy anniversary, babe. looking forward to the next fifty-five!
a year
dread is often—i would even venture to say usually—much worse than the actual cringe-worthy event. i should know that by now. but it doesn’t stop me from letting apprehension build with the approach of something i would rather avoid, deny, ignore.
it doesn’t seem possible that it could’ve been a year since mom left us to join her Lord in Heaven. in fact, it seems downright wrong.
i don’t know what was most offensive about this unwelcome milestone – the fact that time has had the audacity to keep marching on, or that i now have a marker to make me feel woefully lagging on where i’m “supposed to be” emotionally by this point. the pain is still fresh, the shock still wearing off, yet my excuse can no longer be an acceptable “my mom died last year.”
although unintentional, i’d established a self-imposed statute of limitations on my grief. in my mind, once we were on the other side of the year mark, the expectations on my feelings, actions, and reactions would be different…even though i honestly don’t feel much different.
while i’m certain not one of my family or friends would ever place a time constraint on my healing process, i feared that people wouldn’t understand. as if the general consensus after a certain period of time is “the sorry window is closed on that.”
but when i woke this morning (the day after The Day), i felt considerably lighter. as i read God’s word, i felt Him reminding me that He has been, is, and will be my strength, comfort, and joy amidst the sorrow. i realized that while the longing for my mother is still just as strong as the first day without her, she would be proud of the way her family has spent this last year honoring her memory, glorifying The Healer, rejoicing in new beginnings, enjoying fun times, and leaning on each other.
missing my mom desperately is not a sign of weakness, because healing is not a matter of moving on from someone who will eternally be an intimate part of my life. it’s about moving forward, on purpose, fearlessly.
it’s amazing how surviving one of your worst fears, and and experiencing God’s provision though it, renders all other threats innocuous.
