Beautiful Days

I have a unwritten goal of posting something each month. (And now it's written, I guess.) I'm a little shocked that May is already over, and I obviously didn't meet that goal last month...

June is also flying by with alarming speed.  Life and work are very full right now, each week more so than the last it seems, so I have not had much energy to write.

However, I have been struck frequently these last several weeks by how incredibly blessed I am by my children. Though our days together often feel long (we all celebrate when Daddy gets home from work each night!), the days are filled with beautiful moments that I treasure.

Moments such as:

When the house is a disaster, baby brother is in bed, and Daddy isn't home yet...what to do?
Put on some super cleaning capes, of course!

 *Isaiah gently kissing Ezra's head, wrapping his arms around him for a quick hug.

Brotherly love, zoned in on the last scenes of Thomas the Train.
(And no, my 8 month old baby does not normally watch TV!)

 *The slapping of little hands on the hardwood floor as Ezra crawls enthusiastically toward a desired object.  The things he's not supposed to touch bring him the most fun to pursue. :)

Mommy and Ezra - we love our ErgoBaby!
This kid spends alot of time in this thing as we chase around his big brother.

Finger food lovin'.

 *Ezra erupting in fits of uncontrollable giggling

*The thrill of discovery as Ezra figures out that a toy makes great noises

Rockin' Daddy's cap

 *The love of balls, sticks,and rocks--my firstborn baby has transformed into an active boy.

His first ride on his new push bike!  So much joy!

Daddy and Isaiah riding bikes together.

This kid looooves Raisin Bran!

Morning snuggle/soft lovey sharing ritual in Isaiah's bed.

Ezra riding Isaiah's truck. 

 *Isaiah's imagination.  Right now his favorite thing is to hear stories about "Pork Chop", the pink pig. (His daddy's creation....)

.

*Little boys snuggling me on the couch while we read books.
.
*Ezra's squeal of excitement to see Isaiah after E gets up from a nap.

*Isaiah's little voice leaving me messages on my phone while I'm working. "Moooom. Home. 'Ra, up. Eat."  (Mom, come home, Ezra's up, he's ready to eat!)


Sometimes the day drags on forreeeever.  Sometimes the house is filling with whiny kids and a grumpy mom.  Sometimes everything is chaotic with a kid whining for food, a baby screeching for food, and barely enough time to drink my coffee cold...again.

But it's okay.  The beautiful moments far outweigh the messy ones, and they transform each day into a beautiful one that the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Thoughts from Crayons

I was looking at some early crayon drawings that Isaiah and I did together in the summer before Ezra was born.  It was difficult to get him interested in coloring then, and I was thinking about how Ezra will probably take to it quickly because he'll be able to watch his big brother color.

Buddies!

Then the thought hit me: We will never again have our first child.

That thought kind of makes me happy.

The first child is great. I mean, really, really incredible.  You learn you can love a human being waaaay more than you ever thought possible. You learn what it means to actually live selflessly. You learn you don't actually need 7-8 hours of sleep a night to function.  You learn baby poop really isn't that scary....

But it's also hard. Really, really hard.  You forget what it's like to eat your supper warm.  You drag through more days than you care to on 3-4 hours of sleep.  You're left to learn how to take care of a helpless human being that is solely dependent on your care for survival.  You also learn you have no CLUE what to do with your first child in like ten zillion different situations. I remember desperately wishing these babies came with a personalized manual for operation.

For instance: During Isaiah's 'witching hour', which was actually intense crying from 5-9 pm for 2-3 weeks (oh, how we would have been glad for just one hour!), Andrew and I would take turns pouring over baby books, Google search, and baby blogs while the other one held our crying child, trying to figure out some way --any way--to help him stop crying. Those days felt like an eternity.  BUT, with our second child, we had the sweet assurance that YES, it is a phase, YES, it will pass, and YES, we will survive.  Combine that knowledge along with our hard-won parenting experience, and we somehow managed to skirt around Ezra's short-lived 'witching hour' with a whole lot more grace and finesse.

For instance #2: Feeding Isaiah solids was incredibly intimidating to me.  As in, paralyzed-into-inactivity intimidating. (That was alot of 'in's in one sentence, by the way.) It's a small miracle he even got to eat some solids before he was like 10 months old.

Ezra? Meh...bake some fruit or veggies in my super toaster oven, whip them up in the blender, and presto!  Give that kid some food! One day I decided to start with Ezra's first food and just did it.  No agonizing over what food should be first, or how much to give, or what consistency to make it, etc. etc. It was quick and--dare I say it?--easy.  And even kind of fun.

Isaiah's first food--instant baby brown rice cereal. Ezra's first food - avocado.  I actually don't think that sweet son #2 is going to ever see a bowl of rice cereal in front of him, and that's just fine with me.  I have learned enough with my first child that we will simply forge ahead into the exciting world of whole foods and flavorful combinations with my second child.  I can relax because I now have confidence that there is not one 'right' way to start solid foods--just as there is never one 'right' way in a host of other child-rearing decisions that parents must make.

Many of the decisions I poured over with Isaiah now come semi-easily with Ezra.  A surprising amount of information got lost in the sleep-deprived newborn months of Isaiah, but usually a little refresher is all it takes to make some kind of decision.  And without so much stress of "What if I get it wrong?". Because though we definitely screw it up sometimes, these babies of ours are resilient.  :)

Resilient, wonderful, incredibly precious, and so totally worth it.

a full lap!

Check out my two bottom teeth!

Ezra rocking a cap

Isaiah and Andrew making Saturday morning pancakes

Snowman building

Tummy time on Daddy's legs

Our friend Emilee took a few shots of our family for Easter. They were great!

Brotherly love

I love Ezra's expression here! "mischievous little brother"

The Dusing family, Easter 2014

Savor the Moments; Part 2

Ezra, 6 months; Isaiah, 27 months

The past six months have been filled with mountains of joy and valleys of tears.  Some ladies and I recently went through Beth Moore's study Stepping Up, A journey through the Psalms of Ascent; I've referenced this study before in my post on Ezra's birth.  I'm reminded now of one of the Psalms we covered, when a day was spent talking about Psalm 126: 5-6. "Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping carrying seed to sow will return with songs of joy carrying sheaves with them."

One thing said in that day was - "I need to know I'll never endure a season of tears that can't turn into a harvest of joy."  That, along with these verses, really resonated with me in a time when my day was filled with lots of tears, whether it be my own, Ezra's, or Isaiah's.  The Lord's promises to return a harvest of joy from my tears was so very encouraging.  And now, I am blessed to be experiencing it.

I have sown in tears time and time again during the past 1/2 year, coming out of the weeks of lack of sleep, concern for Ezra's health, boredom of being cooped up indoors (hello, Quebec winter!), being constantly hungry because I can't figure out what to eat on my (Ezra's) food restrictions, and figuring out how to take care of two kids.

The budding season of spring has brought the time to begin reaping songs of joy.  Ezra's intestine is on the mend, we are enjoying eating meals all together as Ezra starts solids, watching the boys begin to play together, and enjoying Isaiah's recent and enormous developments in speech, concepts, and imagination.  We are having many more times of joy and fun, and less of chaos and meltdowns.  It's the little moments throughout the days that leave Andrew and I looking at each other with amazement at how much we love our children, and our little family.

I am so very thankful for my boys.

morning pajama snuggles!

Here are just a very few of Ezra's 'moments' - little man, you melt Mommy's heart! The enormity of love I feel for you astounds me. In no particular order...a few of the beautiful smiles we get to witness every day.

4 months

This kid loves the adrenaline rush already!

Best Gift Ever! 11 weeks old

8 weeks old

Avocado - yum!

This kid is too skinny for the bumbo....

oh yeah, tummy time is fun!

deep thinker

We love to hang out together!

Death grip on Daddy's hair - 1st time on Daddy's shoulders!

5 3/4 months

6 months!

Can't wait for the next 6 months of this little man's life - what a treasure he is to us!

The Hope of Spring

Written Februrary 26, 2013

Back in November, I was dreading the long winter stuck in a tiny house with two kids.  I am very thankful to say....it is almost March!  This week it is cold, but rumor has it this is probably the last really cold spell of the winter.  Next week should be close to 0 C, and it will be just get better from then on out.  I realized the other night that my perspective of what is cold may have gotten skewed the last few years of living in Canada...  I was running around the Center we live at doing some errands, in a t-shirt and zip up sweatshirt because it was 'so warm'--except then I saw a thermometer and it was about -15 C, ( 0 F).  Ok, not so warm after all...

All that to say, the winter has gone much faster than I anticipated.  I can scarcely believe that Ezra is almost 5 months old! I really feel like he is not that old, and I know I treat him as such.  In a couple weeks we will be starting solids, which seems crazy to me.  He is also called the drool king around here, and like to chew on both hands...at the same time, if he can manage it.  I see two little nubs of teeth so close to poking through his bottom gums! Isaiah got his first tooth at 5 1/2 month, and I think Ezra will be on that same track.

We also took Ezra to a microbiologist for a blood analysis to see if she could give some insight into his eczema and digestive issues.  It was pretty fascinating all that she can see from a couple little drops of blood. Ezra totally wooed her, grinning and giggling at her the entire time we were there, even when she poked his finger and took the blood sample.  I was cringing, but he certainly didn't seem to even notice! Anyway, she was very helpful, and I feel like we are on a good track for Ezra now.

Part of  what she found was his sensitivities to dairy/lactose products, chocolate, and peanut products. As a nursing mommy, that means 'bye-bye' all things delicious.  I am still not eating gluten for Ezra as well (ok, I sneak bites here and there, but it is pretty minimal), so saying good-bye to my beloved dairy was pretty sad. And let me tell you, the cravings for something cheesy and creamy have been even stronger than when I was pregnant!  I have told Andrew that when this is all over, whenever that may be, I am making myself a HUGE grilled, gourmet cheese sandwich.  And it is going to be AWESOME.  :)

As for Isaiah, our big thing this month has been screaming.  At night. In his crib.  In a very angry, tantrum kind of way.  We went through a couple tortuous night where he was up for 3-4 hours, crying/screaming, unless we were right next to his crib, in which case he was perfectly calm and happy.  This has led to the introduction of Isaiah's "No Screaming Chart".  We have been giving him some 'sleep rules', one of which is, "We do not scream in our crib."  Every morning that he gets up and hasn't screamed in the night, he gets a sticker.  It has helped sooo much!  He seems to totally know what he is doing too, so if he ask him in the morning, "did you scream?"  he will correctly say yes or no.  He has 8 days worth of stickers out of about 11 nights, and the days he did "scream" it wasn't much, more like loud crying.

Fast forward to today...
This chart has revolutionized sleep as we know it. :)  There is no more screaming in our house!  He has stopped waking up in the night almost completely, and when he does it it usually to giggle or talk to himself for a few minutes.  I have no idea what was going on for those long weeks, but we are so glad it is over!

Ezra is also finally improving in his night sleep again. Much fewer wakings all around, which leads to happier more rested parents and children. Wahoo!  I did have to laugh though, because from what I remember, Isaiah was sleeping 8-10 hours a night, every night, by the time he was 3-4 months.  Well, I found my logs from months 3-5..... boy, was I wrong!  As I read through page after page of these detailed logs I was keeping out desperation, I still don't remember it myself, but it is recorded there on those pages, that Isaiah was up just as much, if not more, than Ezra has been these last several weeks.  I guess there are some things the mind knows it is better to not remember....

Anyway, we are greatly looking forward to going outside without needed to be bundled up from head to toe all the time, and Ezra is going to be a great age this summer to be outside with us.  I am so thankful for God's sustaining power that I have seen and felt through this winter, and for the fun that Isaiah, Ezra, and I have had in our teeny little house day after day.

And here's just a little bit of sunshine and smiles until next time.

Ezra looking pensive

St. Patrick's day fun!

Savor the Moments

Today I finally cleaned off our picture card, full of a year and a half of pictures.  I've been going through them, folder by folder, amazed at how my boys are growing up so quickly.

I have found there are lots of hard moments being a mommy.

But there are also so, so, so many more beautiful moments of joy, discovery, laughter, and love.

Here are some of those moments with Isaiah in the past few months:

Because Bubbles are fun!

The day our 16 month consumed a monstrous burrito in its entirety.

Feeding Kira

"I got Daddy's hat!"

Signing 'help' to get out of the box

Concentration

Belly laughs at Mommy's silliness

Love the pool time!

Building

A snowy day's water play

What, you don't sit on a can of beans every morning?

Just a boy and his stick