When I went in Reed’s room to wake him up Sunday morning he looked at me and said, ‘Good Nap!’
I love that little fat kid.
(I want to remember his funny sayings and I can’t keep up with any physical list, so you will all be subjected to some of these super short, Reed language posts)
Wait til I tell you the ‘pretty girl’ story…
When we got the notice that our Pastor, Rev. Ryan Barnett, was going to transfer to another church at the beginning of the summer, we jumped on the schedule to baptize Alison before he left. You see, Ryan has been a meaningful friend and Pastor to us, and we didn’t want to let him slip away without doing us the honor of baptizing Ali. Ryan also knows the Alison that our daughter was named for, so it was symbolic for us to have Ryan bring our Alison into the church where we first met her namesake.
The other meaningful element was to have Papa Roy (Rev. Roy Wold) assist in the baptism, just like he did with Reed. It means so much to have him as part of the family, that we want him to be a part of all these events as long as he is around. He is about 96 now and we are blessed every year that he is still with us.
The ceremony went well. Julie had Ali dressed in long white gown that she had purchased months ago. We hope to keep it and pass it on to future girls in the family. Reed behaved himself pretty well through the service and even gave the crowd some laughs when he patted Ali’s head gently and when he kept trying the put the lip gloss on me that he insisted on holding.
Check out the pics and video below.
-RB
The Baldwin household has had a rough 2 weeks.
Last Monday I found out the following things:
1. My good friend’s grandmother (who I have known for 15 years) passed away. Her death wasn’t tragic, but it was still a loss and therefore humbling and sad.
2. One of our pastor’s wives had a miscarriage. Nothing good about that.
3. My friend Anna’s 34 week old baby died in the womb. And she had to deliver that sweet little girl on Mother’s Day. My heart aches in ways I can’t even understand. Maybe it is because I have 2 healthy living children, and she doesn’t…but I hurt so badly for her. I can’t even put it into words. But Anna and her husband Josh can. These two incredible people spoke at Isabel’s funeral. They spoke about their faith in God. They spoke about how her death has helped them to know God in a way they had never known him before. What a loving God we serve.
Fast forward to this week.
1. Tuesday my mom fell down. She went to the doctor on Wednesday and is now in a cast for 6 weeks. She broke 4 bones in her foot which will heal, but it changes all of our summer plans. She is terrible at sitting still.
2. I got sick. Sicker than I have ever been in my entire life. I came home early on Tuesday. My fever was so intense I was having hallucinations. (no joke). I couldn’t open my eyes, but I couldn’t sleep. And I couldn’t walk. And my throat was on fire. Swallowing was like when you accidentally scratch a new sunburn. Misery. Wednesday I finally took my temperature. 104degrees. Off to the ER we went. The awesome doctor gave me shots and the throat was better within a matter of hours. But the fatigue and the headache would not cease. Misery I tell you. I finally was able to walk across my bedroom without holding onto something tonight. I hadn’t eaten in 2 days except an applesauce cup. Worst sickness of my life.
3. Wednesday I found out my friend past away. He was my age and his death is so tragic. I still haven’t wrapped my head around his death and can’t really talk about it much.
As the title says…I can’t take anymore. No more pain, no more sadness. I just need some happiness.
And then I remember all the good things. I WILL (and did) get better, I’m not terminally ill. My mom will heal. Anna and Josh still lost Isabel, but they are already using their loss to glorify God. How amazing. And let’s not forget the little fat kid and the stinkin’ baby…Light of my life those two. I am thankful that she has learned to sleep through the night. And that Reed is still enamored with Ali. He is so protective of her and loves to make her laugh. And Randy is a great father to those babies.
Life is great…but I could really use a break from all the pain.
I had just come home from work and picking up the two kids. In fact we were still unloading in the driveway when my co-worker, Jason, and his wife pulled up to the house. You see, they were on their way over to my neighbor’s house to look at their new litter of Golden Retriever puppies. They had a camera in hand and were ready to snap some shots of cute puppies.
We were chatting in the front yard before they headed over, and for some reason Reed decided to take off across the front yard, right in front of them. Jason had his camera out and pointed it at Reed, just as Reed took a forward tumble and rolled up onto his face, and over on his side. Jason snapped a single shot in the middle of the action and the result is what you see here… an instant classic.
We are going to laugh at this photo for years to come!
RB
How is this sweet girl already 4 months old? When Reed was this tiny we would literally spend hours each night just staring at him and caring for him and loving on him. Sweet Alison gets about an hour of that…while Reed is in the tub and getting ready for bed. I feel like her little life is happening SO fast.
At 4 months old you are:
24 inches long (50%)
13 pounds 10 ounces (50%)
16 inch wide head (70%)
You still are 100% breastfed (yeah me!)
You are still a pretty sucky sleeper. You and I have had lots of talks about this…but we are working on it. On good nights we wrap you up in your blanket (I will show pictures, I promise it is safe) to keep you from taking your pacifier out. You sleep even better when I put you on your changing pad inside your crib. Those are the best nights. You are capable of sleeping through the night, you just choose not to on many occasions.
You are still pretty snotty a lot of the time. These San Antonio allergies wreak havoc on your little sinuses.
You are the smiliest baby I have ever known. We don’t have to do much more than look at you and you are smiling and laughing it up.
You love your bouncer and sit in it every night while we eat dinner. You usually just smile and laugh at me through the whole meal. I love that time
You are wearing 3-6 month clothes
You love Reed and are such a good sport about not crying when he hugs you too tight or accidentally hits you in the head with whatever toy he is holding when he dive bombs your body for a hug.
You love bath time with Daddy and just stare at him and laugh the whole time.
Speaking of Daddy…you are totally in love with him. Seriously. I am sometimes a little jealous because you give him the best giggles.
You and Daddy are going to be great friends because you have the same temperament, but also the same natural rhythm. You love to stay up a little later…but you really love to sleep in! On the weekends I usually put you in bed with Daddy while Reed and I get up and eat breakfast. If I let it happen you and Daddy would sleep like that until 9am. He is so excited to sleep in with you as you get older.
You look so much like your Daddy…and it makes him love you a little extra.
I think you have all the men wrapped around your little finger. No joke, every single time Duke comes to visit you he has to hold you and he looks at me with tears in his eyes and says ‘she is just SO beautiful’. Then he calls you a home wrecker and I like to think of you as a heart-breaker…but we don’t need you to wreck and homes when you get older. Let’s just keep that straight!! Ha
I was so nervous to have a little girl…but you are better than anything I could have imagined!! (Remind me to read this again when you are in middle school and tell me you hate me for the first time…I will really need to remember this loving awesome little girl then :))
I love you sweet girl!!!
Mother’s Day truly is the most important holiday (except Easter) for me. I would rather celebrate Mother’s Day than my birthday, and I don’t think that will ever change for the rest of my life.
My entire life all I wanted was to be a mom and raise a family. That sounds so archaic, but it is also 100% truth. Like most girls I had a timeline in my mind from the time I was a high-schooler. I would go to A&M, meet my future husband in our sophomore year (freshman year was for partying). We would get engaged at the end of our junior year and get married after we graduated. We would both have steady jobs right out of college (and I didn’t want to live in San Antonio). 3 years later we would have the first of 5 children. Yes, I wanted 5 children.
Obviously that isn’t how my life turned out. I met a boy and we were on the right path to be engaged in college and married right after. Too bad God kept telling me he wasn’t the right guy. Problem…there was nothing wrong with him! I walked away from a perfectly good man, and a perfectly good relationship. Then I proceeded to work in a job I hated, in a city that didn’t fit me. After several stupid career moves and 2 changes to my city…I landed back home. In good old San Antonio. Low and behold…there was this other boy there. He had always been there as my friend, but this time it was different. This time everything was perfect. Everything was easy. This time he was the RIGHT boy. Luckily he thought I was the right girl, too! 🙂
Back to the Mother’s Day part…we got married after dating for a measly 10 months, because when you know, you know. Why waste time? We got married in December 2005 and started trying to get pregnant in January 2007. 18 LONG months passed with no success. Those 18 months were very long, and very dark for me. My faith was rocked more in those 18 months than in the 3 years I spent without a single date. Somehow I knew I would find the right husband, but I didn’t know if I would ever get my one true desire…a house full of children. We talked about fertility treatments and I had a referral from my OB. In the end I just couldn’t make myself do it.
We all know that God has his perfect timing, and I just felt like if I went in for fertility treatments I wasn’t relying on God’s perfect timing. I don’t have any judgment for people who do fertility treatments…it just wasn’t what God wanted from us. My good friend Jill gave me the perfect encouragement in that horrible and scary time. She said that God is capable of anything, and that if he wants me to do fertility treatments he will change my heart. She was 100% right, and her conviction gave me such incredible peace in a very scary time.
We all know the rest of the story…Reed was born in March of 2009. Light of my life, joy of all joys. Even how he was born was orchestrated by God. God wanted Reed to live, and God wanted me to have Reed. His timing is perfect.
Since we had so much trouble getting pregnant with Reed we intentionally did not prevent getting pregnant again. Now we have Alison too! Praise the Lord for his goodness!
So that is why Mother’s Day is better than all the holidays put together. God has given me everything I could have ever hoped for. Even on the really challenging days I am usually able to keep my gratitude at the front of my mind. It helps to keep me from getting too frustrated with that little 2 year old when he wants to wear shorts in January, or with Alison when she thinks it’s time to play at 3am.
Being a Mother is the single greatest gift I have ever received. Now my job is to make sure I honor this gift by honoring this gift. All I want is to raise kind, generous, loving children…who love football and Jesus!!!
JB
The Aggie baseball team was playing UTSA in San Antonio on Tuesday. The weather was unseasonably fabulous this week, and we made a family trip to the game. Unfortunately the Aggies lost in the bottom of the 10th, but we sure had a great time!
Apparently it is impossible to win the baby sleep lottery twice (and if any of you have hit it twice…don’t tell me. Ignorance is bliss at this point).
Reed was the ‘mythical child’ (according to Sarah). He slept through the night starting at 7 weeks old and never looked back. In my new mom foolishness I thought this was totally normal. I couldn’t understand why some children who were 8 and 10 months old who still didn’t sleep through the night. God is laughing at that now.
Ali is a sucky sleeper. She is totally capable of sleeping through the night and definitely doesn’t need to eat during the night. She sleeps through the night maybe once or twice a week. Too bad she has also been known to wake up at 11, 2:30 and 5:30 all in the same night.
We just can’t get that girl into a good routine. For the last week or so we have been very diligent about trying to create a bedtime routine for her. I feed her while Reed is getting his bath and getting ready for bed. Then Randy gives Ali a bath. Usually she is ready to settle down and go to sleep…but not every night. And usually she will sleep until 4:30 or so…but not every night. Some nights she will only settle down if we wrap her up in a receiving blanket and put her in the swing. Other nights she just kicks and kicks like a crazy person, so we put her in her crib.
Just this past week I felt like I had cracked the sleep code. She had woken up in the night and I changed her diaper. Before I could get her jammies back on she was out cold on her changing table pad. I took this as a sign and just moved her (on the changing pad) into her crib. She never woke up again the whole night. Before anyone passes judgement I realize this is probably not an approved sleeping position…but I don’t care. She was on her back and sound asleep. She didn’t move all night.
This position worked well for several nights, but last night she wouldn’t settle down and it was back to the swing.
This little girl is already a diva and she isn’t even 4 months old yet!!! Oh yeah, she also sucks at keeping the pacifier in her mouth!
Here are a few of the many sleep positions she works…
Today I was supposed to be on a plane to Seattle. We have been prepping for this trip for a month. I was going to fly out around noon today and fly all day Thursday to be home right after 5. I was super excited about it. Traveling alone is one of my happy places. I can do what I want when I want. I don’t get lonely, I really like it.
Today Randy dropped me off at the airport and I flew through the security line. Everything seemed like it was going great. Too bad I had this little nagging feeling in the back of my head/pit of my stomach. It just didn’t feel right. Long story short, the plane I was supposed to take out of San Antonio was struck by lightning in flight from Dallas. I’m sure that happens, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. We waited and waited and waited and finally they told us the crummy news. Our flight was canceled. They got me booked on the next flight to Seattle, but I wouldn’t land until 10:30pm. If this was a trip to ANY other refinery this would be no problem. I would miss my ride with my boss (who was on a different flight) but I could just take a taxi to the hotel and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Unfortunately the Anacortes refinery is 90 minutes from the Seattle airport. Not only would I have to rent an additional car, but I wouldn’t get to the hotel until well after midnight. And I would have to drive in the cold and dark all alone. I have done this before, but this time it just didn’t feel right.
I walked down to my boss’ gate and he told me to stay home. I was SO very disappointed. I went home and prayed about the situation. I prayed that I would find peace with the situation and would have a good attitude for my kids. Then I took a long (fantastic) nap and by the time I woke up I did feel better about the situation.
I have no idea why I wasn’t supposed to get on that flight, but I am at peace that I wasn’t supposed to. I am sure that I will never know why I should have been home this week, but tonight I am thankful. I’m thankful to be writing this blog post from my living room. I’m thankful that I didn’t have to worry about the logistics of bringing home about 75 ounces of breast milk on a plane. I’m thankful I got to hold both of my babies tonight and didn’t have to worry about how stressed out Randy was at home alone with both of them. More than anything I’m thankful that I listened to God when he told me to change my plans. It isn’t an easy thing to do. Stop your agenda and listen to what His plan is. But man it felt good. Let’s hope I can be smart enough to listen next time he wants me to do something contrary to my grand plan.
This is what I got to look at tonight instead of an empty hotel room!!
JB
Reed: Waa–ter?
Mommy: How do you ask?
Reed: Pu-Weeeezzzze!!
Mommy: Ok.
We must get it on video. It is hilarious.
I am using it to my advantage. I will ask him for a kiss and he always says “no”. Now I say, “pu-leeze” and believe it or not, he will comply! Success for Mommy!