kids
Preparing to launch
Eighteen years and seventeen days ago we brought our first child home for the first time. She was just a tiny newborn joining two new, naïve parents in the adventure of life.
Tomorrow, we load her packed boxes of belongings into the van and head out to launch her into the next phase of her adventure: college at SDSMT. I’m sure none of us really appreciate yet how much we will miss her, but we’re so excited for the opportunity she has and the path that lies ahead of her.
Some days have seemed long, but the time now seems to have been very short.
On parenthood and life
Tech blogger Jeff Atwood took a detour from his usual nerd programming yesterday to address a nearly universal topic: parenthood. He expresses something about the joys of parenting in a way I completely understood and couldn’t have said half as well:
When I am holding Henry and I tickle him, I can feel him laughing all the way to his toes. And I realize, my God, I had forgotten, I had completely forgotten how unbelievably, inexplicably wonderful it is that any of us exist at all. Here I am with this tiny, warm body so close to me, breathing so fast he can barely catch up, sharing his newfound joy of simply being alive with me. The sublime joy of this moment, and all the other milestones – the first smile, the first laugh, the first “dada” or “mama”, the first kiss, the first time you hold hands. The highs are so incredibly high that you’ll get vertigo and wonder if you can ever reach that feeling again. But you peak ever higher and higher, with dizzying regularity. Being a new parent is both terrifying and exhilarating, a constant rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows.
Jeff’s oldest is only 2 1/2, so I won’t spoil it for him, but it doesn’t stop at age 4. The delight of parenting and seeing your kids learn those new things and experience life in new ways is still a joy when they’re 5 or 6 or 7. Even through the lows it is an amazing experience.
Yesterday afternoon we sat down on the couch with the girls to tell them that their Pops had passed away. Laura, at 7, immediately broke into sobs and cried for a good 5 minutes. And then she was OK. No more words. I wonder how she’s internalizing it, and if we’ll end up talking more about it later. She’s so much like me, it’s scary. But little Addie, only 5, didn’t have tears. She started to think about the news, and to talk through it. “So,” she said, “mom’s dad passed away.” Pause. “I’m glad I still have a dad and mom. I’d be sad if my dad passed away.” Then we talked about how Pops is so much happier and healthier now that he’s in heaven with Jesus, and about how we will see him again someday.
After that we spent a beautiful fall night in the backyard with burgers on the grill, cold beer (for me, not them), a fire in the firepit, marshmallows roasted, and friends who came by with ice cream. Then it was inside for pajamas, hugs and kisses, prayers, books, and bed. And quickly they slept, fresh to wake again as I was leaving for work this morning at some ungodly hour.
Some day future, God willing, my daughters and their families will sit out under the sky and raise a glass in memory of me. My prayer is that, when that time comes, they will be just as thankful and blessed as I was last night. God’s goodness continues from generation to generation.
Home again, home again... (new baby edition)
As a friend noted the other day, it’s a bit of a weird feeling to know that you’re driving only two to the hospital, but when you come home there will be three. But it’s a great feeling, too, to finally leave the hospital and bring folks home. Becky and Katie were discharged on Sunday morning and came home to two excited sisters and two grandparents.
Since she came home there has been a steady stream of visitors: my brother Aaron and his wife Emily came down on Sunday for a few hours, my parents came down to visit today for the day, and my sister Rebecca and her roommate came down this afternoon and will head back tomorrow. Such excitement for such a small person! :-)
Katie was awake and hungry a good bit of the night last night and has then managed to sleep a good bit of the day today. Hopefully we can get her schedule switched around this week so we can get some better sleep… or, I should say, so Becky can get some better sleep; I’m afraid I slept through most all of it last night.
Such a blessing to have a home with a beautiful wife and three beautiful little girls. God is good.
It's a girl!
Katherine (Katie) Paige Hubbs born March 20, 2009 at 11:22 am 7 lbs, 13.5 oz 20.5" long.
Everybody is doing great.
The Waiting Game
We’ve gotten to that point in Becky’s pregnancy now where it’s just a waiting game. The calendar is clear; the in-laws are here (and planning to stay until after the baby is born), the bags are packed. Heck, we even made a trial run to the hospital on Thursday morning when we had a bit of a false alarm. So now we wait.
Last time when we were playing the waiting game we ended up buying a minivan. We’re still paying it off. I don’t think we’ll do anything quite so expensive this time, but we might at least take advantage of the free babysitting and go out to dinner or watch a movie or something. The weather is great this week so we’ll take lots of walks. And then we wait some more.
Actually, if the baby were born on Wednesday or so of this week the timing would be pretty great - nothing like having a built-in excuse to take vacation days from work during the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament. :-) Not that basketball would be my, um, priority or anything.
I am slowly learning patience whether I like it or not.
More Ketchup!
Our little Addison (age two and a half) caught a low-grade stomach bug earlier this week. She wasn’t notably ill or uncomfortable, just sleeping more than usual and not wanting to eat much of anything. That it was, in fact, a stomach bug became clear on Wednesday morning when she threw up. Still, she was running around like normal, and talked more and faster than an overcaffeinated chipmunk for the first ten minutes after I got home from work.
Later on Wednesday, with church activities canceled due to other folks being sick, we decided to go drive through Culver’s and bring some burgers home. (Oh, and some cheese curds… yum yum.) Addie wanted to eat, so we went ahead and gave her a quarter of a cheeseburger and a few fries. And I tell you: that girl went to town.
She ate the first few fries in no time flat. She asked for more. What the heck, we said. If she’s hungry and wants to eat, she can have all the fries she wants. So she ate a couple more fries, then started in on the burger. She had eaten probably half the burger, and had the rest of it half-chewed when I saw her make a gagging face. I warned Becky and she grabbed Addie’s plate (by now empty except for a few fries) and up came the burger. After a couple more heaves she was done, and her determination was remarkable. Without even sparing a second, two words came out of her mouth.
“More ketchup.”
See, it didn’t matter that she’d just thrown up her entire dinner back on to her plate. What mattered was that there were three unscathed french fries left on that plate, and there wasn’t enough ketchup left for those fries. That, my friends, is focus.
While she didn’t get the rest of those fries, she did start managing to keep food down Wednesday night, and by Thursday afternoon she was eating another cheeseburger, and more french fries, and feeling fine.
[Disclaimer so I don’t feel like a bad parent: yes, we regularly feed our kids stuff healthier than cheeseburgers. The end.]
Do you want to play with me?
Children have ways of saying things that just cut you to the quick. They don’t realize it, but you hear the words, and, whammo, they’ve got you. Today’s example: my four-year-old daughter Laura.
Laura loves her daddy time, and loves to play. Some days it’s Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders; other days it’s playing “horsies” in her room (we each get a toy horse and have pretend conversations!); other times we play hide and seek in the house. (She always hides the same place: under the covers on our bed.) And when she wants me to play with her, she always asks the question the same way.
“Daddy, do you want to play with me?”
It’d be so much easier if she asked “Daddy, will you play with me?” or “Daddy, can you play with me?”. Because then at times I could respond “sorry, Daddy can’t right now” and just go back to whatever else I am doing. But instead she asks “Daddy, do you want to play with me?” and then I’m forced to check my motives.
Too often my first (internal) reaction is something along the lines of “but I was just checking my email” or “no, I want to finish reading this article online”. And then I’m convicted. Shouldn’t I really want to play with her?
Time moves fast. Laura is already four. Next year she’ll start school of some sort. We won’t always have time to play horsies or hide and seek or Candyland. When I stop to think about it, I really do want to spend the time with my girls that I’ve been given right now. Facebook, email, and blogs can wait. So I’m thankful that God can use even my daughter’s simple requests for Daddy time to convict me of my own selfishness. So if this blog sits dormant from time to time, or I don’t respond to your email very quickly, be patient: I might just be playing horsies.
...with some frosting...
One of the things that just fascinates me is observing the girls' learning - not just what they learn but how they learn. Sure, I’m a nerd, but thinking not just that “hey, she used a funny word” but realizing how that particular word reflects the fact that she’s learning about verb tenses (without even knowing it!) just blows me away.
Recent highlight: Laura, looking at a book of nursery rhymes in the van yesterday on our way home from the mall. It’s not a book we’ve read to her very many times. And she’s not reading yet, so what she does is look at the pictures in the book, recite from memory as much as she can, and then improvise based on what she understands from the pictures. So Becky and I are sitting in the front seat talking, and soon we hear this:
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker man, bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it, and roll it, and mark it… um… with some frosting…”
Hilarity ensued.
A study in personalities, or, Mom was right
My mom has mentioned more than once how she enjoys seeing our girls' personalities as they get bigger and start to really develop. She sees Laura as having more of my personality: quiet, methodical, the classic introverted engineer. (Poor kid!) Addie, on the other hand, is the more ornery outgoing one, much like my brother Ryan. I knew I more or less agreed with Mom, but saw it very clearly last night.
We showed up at church around 5 pm to get ready for Wednesday night dinner (which we were serving). The daycare kids who occupy our basement after school were just getting ready to leave. Of course Laura and Addie wanted to play with them, and for a few minutes both of them did. But it was only a couple minutes later that Laura started feeling overwhelmed by the group of noisy kids, and she retreated into the kitchen with us. She was much happier just hanging out there where it was quiet.
But Addie? She was wearing a necklace of gold plastic beads that she got from a parade this summer; it has a big gold plastic disc pendant that advertises a local bank. Since the kids didn’t know her name, they saw the bling and started calling her “hip-hop baby”. She spent the next 10+ minutes chasing them around, teasing them, ducking into the kitchen where they weren’t allowed, only to then poke her head out, get them to scream, chase after them a bit… All the more hilarious because she’s not yet 2 and they were all between 8 and 10.
Parenting is so much fun.