And this is my big boy a couple of months later. I can't believe how much they change in such a short period and how masterfully God designed this trial by fire to shape parents as well. I have always thought of myself as fairly under control - maybe too much at times. I was not prepared - in fact, I never knew I was even capable of either the shocking love or the devastating anger this tiny bundle has brought out in me.
When I recall Graham and I getting ready for his arrival I just have to laugh. We were so...thorough. So precise. Somewhere we figured that if we bought all the right products and arranged everything just so and planned everything out that Owen would just emerge and snap into place with a satisfying click and we could get on with our lives, only richer and happier for the addition. I guess that after five years of living together and, with a few exceptions, shaping our lives around comfort and convenience and laughter...it's hard to change. We talked about it - really, we did- about how much we knew our lives were going to change, how this is the last time we'll get a good night's sleep, how we would have to learn to relate to one another both in light of the boy and as a couple (not just one or the other), all of that stuff we covered in our minds. But that was really just another way in which we were "covering the bases" and getting fully prepared, not realizing that there was no preparing for this type of thing.
Maybe for some people it is different - I imagine that there are some people young enough or wise enough or soft enough that a baby just slides into their lives and everything shifts easily to accomodate it and gels back together - but for the architect, the planner, the critic, the know-it-all...not so much. It would be insufficient to say that these qualities don't lend themselves to sea change in general or to the unpredictability of an infant in specific. Wow. Thank you God for grace and for letting me break into your hands. You have certainly showed me how one can, as the song says " grow in weakness, not in strength."
