How He Loves Us

There is a lot of prayer involved in parenting. Please, God, let him fall back asleep because it is 3am, and I don’t want to get up again. Please, God, help him entertain himself for five minutes so I can...

Deja Vu

This morning, I swayed around the room with Mark as he looked contently over my shoulder. I think he was so exhausted from the last two weeks that he was happy to just sit in my arms and look around...

A Month of Thanks

It has been one solid month since that beautiful moment when I held Mark in my arms for the first time. One blurry, sleep-deprived, wonderful month! Life with a newborn is even more exhausting and unpredictable than people dare admit...

Fear

Throughout the last year, Matt and I have created several traditions to honor the memory of Isabelle. These traditions have been a source of comfort and are reminders that she will always be a part of our family. Among the...

A Year of Firsts

July 25th marks one year since my daughter was born. Like all new parents, this life-changing event brought with it a year of firsts. My firsts just don’t look like everyone else’s firsts. I remember the first time that I...

I Hate July

I’ve been throwing around blog post ideas for the last week or so, but nothing seemed to quite fit. With Isabelle’s birthday approaching, it occurred to me why: I just really hate July. I have been dreading July for months....

The Gift of Friendship

Last weekend, my dear childhood friend and her four smiling children came for a visit. Her husband works for a university and was out of the country teaching for a while. We thought it would be a great opportunity to see...

The Mask of a Grieving Parent

Grieving parents wear masks. Sometimes the face that you see is real, and other times it is not our face at all, but rather a mask. We wear masks because we fear that some people don’t want to know how...

A Father’s Perspective

I wanted a boy. When we first found out Sarah was pregnant, there was no doubt in my mind about what we were having: Sarah was going to give birth to our first child, our first son. We were both...