Wow, what a long time it's been since my last post! I really need to be better about updating my blog.... Which brings me to today. My birthday was yesterday. I turned 29. Evan was baptised today. And as Chad and I were driving home, with our son in the back seat, I turned off the radio and started thinking about life.
Things change in the blink of an eye. Lives are changed forever. One day you are pregnant, and the next you are in charge of a person. If you are lucky, you are responsible for helping this person live right and grow up with morals and beliefs. You teach him what is right and wrong, you teach him about loving himself and others, and you teach him about God.
If you do your job right, he grows up and holds steadfast to what eh believes, and while you may not always agree with what he chooses, you are proud of him for standing strong against the opposition. You help him up when he needs it so that one day he can stand up for himself and what is right. You love him and show him how you love others so that one day he can have a healthy, loving relationship with another. While loving himself and others, he learns about God's love for him and others, and he shares that message with fellow believers and those who have yet to believe. It is this love of God that will help him understand when bad things happen to other people.
Evan had a beautiful cousin, Rolin Isaiah, who lived and ceased living on January 26, 2010. Rolin was 3lb 8oz and 15 inches long. He lived for 3 hours and 17 minutes. Just a drop in the hat of time for those of us who spend our years doing things that do not bring us joy or honor. But for Julia and Scott, those 197 minutes will be in their hearts and memories forever. One day I will share with Evan the story of his cousin's short life, and I will use this bible verse, that Julia and Scott picked out just for Rolin: Isaiah 26:3 (New International Version)
"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you."
"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you."
It is my reflection of Julia's journey through her pregnancy and knowing that her child would not survive much beyond birth, that I realize how precious the gift of a healthy, happy baby is. I know how quickly memories fade so I am going to make an effort to share an update on Evan every day until his first birthday.
To start with today, Evan is just over 4 months/18 weeks old. He is a happy, smiley boy. He has been eating rice cereal for a week last Friday. I have enough milk frozen and am producing enough each day that Evan has had only breast milk since he was 4 days old. Before then he had a little bit of formula, maybe 10oz or so. He is currently drinking 6oz every 3 hours, with 2oz milk + 2 tbsp rice cereal around 2pm. Evan's bedtime is 8pm and our routine is that he falls asleep with a bottle then lights out then we sing a song and he goes into his bed. He will sometimes fuss a little bit about 15 minutes or so after he lays down but will get himself back to sleep. He wakes up around 3 for a bottle then goes back to sleep till 8/9 or so. Evan is a cat-napper, with a 20-30 minute snooze about 2 hours after he wakes up and about every 2 hours after that. Evan usually wakes up happy, and gives big smiles to whoever gets him from his bed in the morning. In an effort to make sure I come back tomorrow, I will leave more details for tomorrow. I work tomorrow so the update will be later in the day. I have heard that you have to do something for 21 days for it to become a habit. Well, here's to creating new habits this new year.
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