New additions

Big news for this week is that Charlie is getting his first 2 teeth! It's the 2 bottom teeth...here is my attempt to capture it with my 2 year old digital camera with a 20-second delay. :)



Some miscellaneous things going on in the Moody household...

1 - Because of Charlie's Torticollis, it is really important for him to spend a significant amount of playtime on his tummy. But now that he can roll over, it is really difficult to keep him off his back. In fact, I think he learned to roll over because he hates being on his stomach. :) This picture shows me bribing him with a Praise Baby DVD and trapping him in the Boppy -















3 - This past week-end we had our friends Ryan and Megain over for dinner and took some pictures of our kiddies in their matching seersucker outfits (both were gifts from Ryan's mom).


Charlie cooperated with the photo shoot for a little while and then he was outta there!


4 - Tonight I get to go out for a rare few hours by myself. A friend is having a Southern Living at Home party and I am pumped about the free snacks. :)

5 - This week-end my sister, her husband and my nephew are coming into town. We're cooking steaks on the grill Friday night and going shopping on Saturday. I'm so exicted!

OK, I'm off to cook dinner...quiche is on the menu...

Happenings in our house

I just realized that it has been quite some time since my last post. My absence can be attributed to several factors:

1 - I have been sick! I have been all but down for the count since September 10th. I woke up that Saturday morning very ill. And then the antibiotics I took for that illness caused my to have stomach issues until last Monday. So I have spent this week catching up on all that I did not get done last week.

2 - Ryan. He has been working like crazy so I've been running this household alone for the past 2 and a half weeks. Thank goodness he's almost finished with this busy rotation in the Intensive Care Unit! Next week is his last week until November.

3 - Work. I nearly had a nervous break-down this week because once again I was called upon to travel. Now a night alone in a hotel sounds absolutely fabulous (and a night alone in the Omni Hotel in Cville sounds even better) and the free Charlottesville dining experiences are very appealing however Charlie is a very high-maintenance child right now and leaving would be difficult (see Point 4 below). So, after consulting with Charlie's doctor today, I had to tell my boss (once again) that I could not travel. We'll see how long I can stall.

4 - Charlie's health. We are still working on his Torticollis by stretching at home and going to physical therapy twice a week. He is improving, slowly but surely, but the physical delays that sometimes accompany torticollis are starting to be more obvious as he gets older. He was 6 months old yesterday and he cannot sit up yet - he has no trunk control whatsoever. Wearing a collar :( and surgery are both still on the table if he doesn't drastically improve in the next 6 weeks. But he did learn to roll over last week and for that we are thankful. He is also a very high-maintenance eater - still refusing to take a bottle and not too interested in eating baby food. So that makes leaving him VERY difficult. After talking with his doctor today at his 6-month appt, we decided to move him straight to the cup - she doubts he will ever want a bottle now that he has made it this long without it. So please pray for his neck, his physical development in general, his flexibility with eating and for my attitude about his special needs. I am so trying to be thankful that this is all we are dealing with and that we have an overall healthy child but sometimes I just feel so sad for him...and sad for myself that I feel like I can't give him all the attention he needs due to work demands.

On a lighter note, I did purchase a very cool kitchen gadget last week: a Magic Bullet blender. This is the greatest contraption! I bought it with the intention of using it make Charlie's baby food (jarred baby food is repulsive to me and quite expensive) but this thing can do so much more! This morning I enjoyed a blueberry smoothie that literally took about 2 minutes to prepare. It was fabulous. This week-end I'm going to make some broccoli soup and hummus...All in the magic bullet! I'm telling you - CHECK IT OUT! :)

Quote of the day:
"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle for you shall be a miracle." Phillips Brooks, abolitionist minister

Expecting perfection

A few years ago I found this quote:
"If you expect perfection or nothing from human relationships, you will get nothing every time."

Being a perfectionist and somewhat of a control freak, I have always struggled with having too high a standard for others and expecting way too much from everything - friends, family, myself and life in general. So I found this statement very helpful in that it enabled me to put all my relationship struggles in perspective...family interactions, friendships, my marriage.

But for some reason, I have not applied this realization to my relationship with my child. Instead, I have spent the last 5 months expecting a tiny little baby to sleep on command, be hungry when I expected him to be hungry, play when I felt like playing and be content to entertain himself when I had other things to do. Now this may sound absurd but it's true - I really did expect these things to happen. I wanted to be in total control of this new parenting thing.

So yesterday, I had a "bad" day - Charlie wanted to eat more often than usual and that got in the way of my job, my cleaning schedule, my workout plans and the music class that we are doing together. I was highly inconvenienced by his larger than usual appetite and complained to Ryan about how "hard" my day had been. [Side note: last night was one of those RARE occasions in which I get to go somewhere ALONE. I went to a very WASPy dessert meeting for the MCG Women's Auxiliary (basically the wives club at MCG) and kids were not invited. So I slipped out for a brief 1.5 hours of glorious alone time, leaving Ryan in charge of Camp Moody.] So back to my day: as I was driving to this dessert party, IT hit me: what do I expect from Charlie? Whatever it is, it's WAY too much. And that is not fair to him, Ryan or myself. The kid sleeps 11 hours straight at night and takes like 3 or 4 naps during the day. What do I have to complain about? So he is hungry from sleeping so long! Big deal, Emily - let 'em eat as much as he wants to because those 11 straight hours of blessed sleep and peace are SO worth it. And then I started realizing that that this truth applied across the board to parenthood - Charlie and our other future children will not come into the world knowing what to do and they are little sinners. It will be up to us to patiently love and parent them with appropriate expectations. And I know that I didn't come up with this on my own - God is totally using Charlie to change me and for that I am thankful.

So yes, I grew up a little bit more last night during that brief 10-minute drive. I felt TOTALLY different when I came home to my crying child. I felt more patient, much happier and much, much more at peace. I'm sure I'll forget this again (likely later on today) but for now, things are much quieter inside my heart and my head and I feel ready for today...and tomorrow...and the next day.

And I also realized that I DESPERATELY need some time to myself, time to distance myself from all the demands of my job, family, dogs, etc and just be still. I turned off the radio, just thinking and praying during that 10-minute drive and it refreshed my soul more than any other period of time since Charlie was born. My friend Marlo posted this verse on her blog earlier this week and it spoke to me then and again this morning:

Is. 30: 15 - For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,"In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength."

Just some new pictures

I don't have anything to say. I honestly can't think of a word to say. But here are some new pictures, courtesy of Ryan's parents high-quality digital camera.