Karis's Baptism

How can I even begin to sum up Karis's baptism? Many months ago when Karis was just a little bump in my belly we went to a class at our church that examined the sacrament of baptism and its great significance in our lives. We went to the class wondering if we would baptize or dedicate Karis (thus wait for her to make her own decision to be baptized at whatever age that would be), and our subsequent discussions both felt a great peace about baptizing Karis as an infant. To be honest, for the first time in my adult life I gave serious thought to my own baptism as an infant, and memories came flooding back to the way my parents yearly celebrated my baptism day by lighting the candle they received after I was sprinkled with the water as an almost 3 month old. I became incredibly grateful that my family committed me to the Lord as a baby and promised to raise me in His ways. I became incredibly grateful for how they kept the promises they made at my baptism. And I began to really thank God for the mystery of baptism and thank Him for His promises that He has fulfilled in my life.

Trevor and I had a lot of peace about having Karis baptized as an infant . . . and speaking to Trevor's baptism - well, I was at his baptism in our high school years, and it was so special and beautiful to watch him profess his faith and be immersed in the cleansing water. He was also baptized as an infant, which was also meaningful to our decision.

Have I mentioned lately what a joy it is to be a parent with Trevor? Making decisions in the interest in and love for Karis is a new and wonderful stage in life's journey together.

We were thankful to have both our families here for the weekend to celebrate Karis's special occasion, we love watching them delight in our little girl!

One of the most significant parts of the weekend for Trevor and me happened Saturday morning. Grandma and Grandpa watched Karis while we snuck away to have a date (which of course equalled errand running that revolved around Karis). From Sam's Club (to pick up pictures of Karis) to Target (to get flowers and a card for Karis), we spent the time talking about . . . Karis and baptism, and Karis's baptism. What it means to us, and what we pray it will mean to her. Something that struck me as I was processing it all is the words we use to describe her baptism: as in, we did not "get Karis baptized" but rather "Karis was baptized". I think those words bear an important distinction, or they do in my mind at least. The act is not one that we initiated or completed, but one that God did.

Anyways, that hour that Trevor and I had together was so precious because Sunday was mainly a blur of getting ourselves and Karis ready for church, changing not one but TWO quite dirty diapers within 10 minutes of getting to church (seriously hilarious, it's like babies just know the "best" time to get "it" out of the way - we were thankful it was at the beginning and not in the middle of the service!). The service was beautiful and our pastor referred to Karis multiple times through the sermon as he spoke of baptism and All Saint's Day. One thing unique to the baptism service is that all the children are welcome and encouraged to come to the altar and witness the baptism close-up - we're blessed to be part of a faith community that esteems children to the highest degree and enfolds them continually as part of the congregation - because they ARE! The act of baptism was memorable, being up at the front of the church and speaking the liturgy feels just so different when it's for your child. The renouncing of evil, the proclamation of good, the promise to raise Karis to also proclaim God's goodness. One moment that sticks out in my mind is when our pastor blessed the water, watching him make the sign of the cross in the water, and then sprinkling the water on Karis's sleeping head. She truly is a child of God, dearly loved by Him and so many others. I was so humbled to think that God would entrust us with this dear child who brings so much joy to countless lives already.

We then were asked to read the verses we chose for Karis - they are the verses that I read every birthday celebration that I have, to me they're a poignant reminder of God's intricate love for each person and remind me always of His design and delight in each life:

Psalm 139: 13-16

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

The celebration continued with a little reception at our home where we were thrilled to welcome friends and family - the whole day was such a blur, and I'm having fun remembering it in the details that come back to mind. Karis was gorgeous, and the sweet spirit we've prayed for her is evident in her shining eyes and expressive actions. We love this little girl more than we thought possible, and we're reminded that God loves us all even more than the love we could ever feel or experience.

I just realized about a week ago how significant the date of Karis's baptism is (November 1st) - it was exactly one year ago on that weekend that Trevor and I earnestly started praying about growing our family . . . how amazing! Also special to the occasion of Karis's baptism is that the gown she wore was the one I wore, AND that my mom wore before me. Maybe Karis will have a daughter who will adorn the garment one day.

Lighting of the baptism candle

Great Grandma Carole got Karis a special bib to wear over her gown - smart move, saved the gown from the inevitable spit up

LOVE this picture

Karis slept through most of the service, the sprinkling of the water woke her up

Karis is blessed to have 3 Godfathers - my brother and two of Trevor's brothers

An update to the previous post

1. Karis refused a bottle on Saturday! Any advice anyone?

2. I wanted to add to my thoughts on having some guilt at my place in life right now . . . I heard a great blurb on a radio show I listen to that spoke to this issue. The encouragement was that when we feel guilty for blessings, we really need to just focus on sharing them, giving where we can. So whenever I start to feel those icky guilty feelings, I think about what I have to give right now - a meal, a visit to a friend in need, a phone call to an old friend, a letter out of the blue to someone who needs it. So yeah, there's my addendum to that thought. Oh, and one more, I read a great article about transitioning from full time work in an office to full time work at home, I found its wisdom helpful. You can read it here if you'd like!

And here's another picture for fun. I call her my "funny honey". What a smile!

Cravings

Because what time I have lately is spent doing what I truly love - preparing for hosting, executing hosting, cleaning up from hosting, writing thank yous and letters and cards to mail, hanging out with other moms and their children, and most importantly spending time with Karis and Trevor (yes my life is crazy wonderful)- I thought I'd cop out on a very thoughtful post and instead copy an interesting thing I read a couple days ago:

Avocados, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Is THIS why I craved avocados like a crazy woman for most of my pregnancy? FASCINATING! I've read that they are also some of babies' first foods (which is a topic on my mind lately, I'm excited by some new perspectives I've been learning about babies and introducing them to food - perhaps another post later, I'm very excited at my recent discoveries).

Quick bullet points of happenings around here:

We were blessed beautifully to have all our families here this weekend to celebrate Karis's baptism (for SURE its own post hopefully sometime soon, such a memorable and miraculous event).

I pumped enough milk for a couple bottles of milk but have been too much of a wuss to actually give it to Karis, and so the milk sits in our freezer. Maybe this weekend when I host a baby shower Trev can try. Again, I never thought I would be "this" way!

Karis started really talking to us, it's a delight to hear her "ooohs and cooos". Her smiles are more brilliant every day. She's also sucking on her hand whenever she can find it, and drooling like crazy (the two usually go hand in hand, and it's so funny to see her face smeared with all her spit). We are pretty messy these days, I fear that I'm becoming immune to the smell of sour milk and might leave the house one day without changing my spit-up sopped clothes.

Other things going through my head:

I NEED to meet my friend N's daughter, Viv. It's been torture to be this far away, and yet I am so thankful for a dear friend who is just so precious that I could miss her and her family this much!

How can I relax into motherhood? I have a cloud of something - guilt perhaps, but that doesn't seem like the right descriptor - that keeps me from fully reveling in this stage of life. I LOVE being Karis's mom, I LOVE spending every day with her, I LOVE how our weeks flow. However, when Trevor comes home and asks what I did that day, I feel funny saying, "Well, we had tea with other moms and daughters, ran errands, did house stuff, wrote some e-mails and cards, and . . . " It all just feels incredibly indulgent. And yet I firmly believe I'm where I'm supposed to be. So really, I guess it's a matter of discontent, perhaps a lack of confidence in that perpetual game of comparisons. But then I look at Karis and spend even a minute with her and these thoughts are all but gone. Life sometimes seems too good, and I thank God for the blessing of where we are right now, with our little girl in our arms.

Karis did not dress up for Halloween, I wonder if I'll regret that someday?

A first date

Trevor and I took our first date as parents today (I know, Karis is 11 weeks old. Another thing I always said I'd "never" be - the mom who has a hard time leaving her kids. So much for that). As it turns out, this date day produced some stories.

Last night landed me on the shorter end for sleep, and I admit to waking up feeling a bit anxious about leaving Karis with our neighbor lady. I confessed my thoughts to Trevor, and the one big worry I had for some reason is that she'd be tempted to feed Karis something or give her juice or water (since I'm not pumping for bottles yet). Well, after a lovely morning at church and youth group Trevor and I sat down to eat our pre-date lunch and I caught him putting a tiny spoonful of yogurt next to Karis's mouth. I hope I can blame my over-reaction on raging hormones and sleep depravation - I ended up saying something to the effect of "I cannot go on a date now". I mean, after just telling him that morning of my worries and then seeing that he was doing the thing I feared, well, it was a bit much for my frazzled self. We both said some apologies.

I finally agreed to still go on our date (grumpily). In true "us" fashion, our date plans were simple and involved trying to spend as little money as possible - using a Caribou gift card and making a return to JC Penny (which is really like making money, ha!). We get to JC Penny's after a pretty amicable drive to the mall. We find a customer service counter and the nice lady assesses our return, a little girl outfit (that we didn't get to use before the season change - a whole other topic being the complicated nature of correctly matching size of clothing to season!). Well, the nice lady says, "Obviously you haven't had the baby yet" (with just a hint of question in her voice inflection). To which I say, "Actually, our daughter is 11 weeks old". To which she says something to the effect of, "Um, oh, sorry, I wasn't sure, I mean you look small . . . open mouth, insert foot." Quite the day maker! Trevor and I walked away laughing (Trevor was thinking he was sure glad it wasn't his foot in his mouth). Apparently eating reeses peanut butter cups during 4am feedings isn't conducive to losing the last of the bulge. Whatever. They taste good, I feel good, and Karis is growing. However, isn't this another reason to take your baby everywhere? No questions asked, no foot sandwiches.

We continued on to The Children's Place store to spend a gift certificate on some cute tights for Karis (are you loving how our date revolved around our daughter? Typical, right?). We walked out remarking how surreal the experience was, just how much our lives have changed in so many beautiful ways.

The date continued at the in-mall Caribou. Trevor got this gift card at work, and then he re-gifted the card to me. I for some reason thought he said it was for $25, which of course had me SO excited about how many cups of coffee for which I could stretch it out. Well, I handed the card over to pay for our americanos and the guy had the nerve to tell me that I owed him money. What? There should be $20 left on that card! Nope, it was a $5 gift card. I laughed, and then I thought I should maybe just go home and go to bed.

Go home we did, feeling very proud of ourselves for not talking too much about dirty diapers or to do lists or budgets. We even took the long and slow way home to enjoy the foliage, and we even reminisced about some "former life" dates.

A gift was awaiting us when we came home, a memory that I'll always treasure. We left our home with one dear neighbor watching Karis and we came home to three dear neighbors watching Karis. It's like they all snuck over for a peek at her while we were gone - precious! A lovely way to end our "first" date.

Moving on to a baby report, some significant things happened:

1. Some of our very best friends welcomed their dear daughter to the world. I cannot stop looking at pictures of Vivian (thank God for Facebook), and during one of Karis's 4am feedings I was literally looking up plane ticket fares because I feel I cannot wait to hold that dear girl and share motherhood stories with my loved friend. Welcome to the world, Vivian, you've already brought much joy to so many who have been waiting for your arrival!

2. Karis went to her first baby shower (where she proceeded to spit up on the guest of honor's beautiful black dress - so sorry!)

3. Karis went to her first apple orchard (with our youth group). How stinking adorable is her little bear snowsuit?

4. Karis got her first cold. =( It breaks her mother's heart to hear even the tiniest sniffle! Poor girl. She did also share the cold with me, so this week was a bit sluggish.

5. Karis went to Chipotle for the first time, significant because since she was born we've called her our little burrito. Please notice that the burrito is almost as big as her (and probably weighs almost as much too)

6. This is kind of old news, but I forgot to mention that Jim and Pam got married. I almost cried at their wedding. Pathetic, I know.

Yes, I do still blog. At least, I think about blogging almost every day. And then I get pulled away and forget all about it until the next day and the pattern repeats itself. I figured the days as a mom would fly, but man do they fly. Karis is of course a joy and every day spent with her is such a gift. Every time I look at her in someone else's arms, I still think "Are you really our's?"

I feel like a few distinct things have come full circle in the last several weeks. First, Trevor told me back in week 2 or 3 of Karis's life that someone told him we'd look back on the first month and realize what a fog we were really in. I remember replying (with probably a hint of defensiveness in my tone) that I really didn't feel like I was in a fog. Well . . . as we enter the start of Karis's third month of life I can say that I didn't realize what a fog I was in. Ha!

One full circle was going to Bismarck for a wonderful visit with friends and family. We got to introduce Karis to more aunts and uncles and grandparents and friends, and every time I had a distinct flashback to all the moments we had in Bismarck over Christmas telling everyone that I was pregnant. And now our daughter is in our arms! Karis loved her first trip to Bismarck and all the time in grandparents' arms - so much so that she started smiling that weekend! There were as always memorable meals, LOTS of pictures taken, and laughs had. One of the hardest laughs I had that weekend was when my mom, Karis and I went to get my haircut. Grandma Nancy was holding Karis and talking to us and she said, "Andrea, I think she filled her pants." Well, Karis has about one such thing happen a day and you can usually really hear it, so I somewhat dismissed it. Not a couple minutes later my mom said, "Andrea, I think she leaked." Sure enough, yellow all over Karis and all over my mom's jeans. Oh my gosh, how can you just not laugh at poor helpless babies who don't know any better? Ah, Karis.

Another distinct full circle was this week when we went to Lucia's, one of our favorite little restaurant/coffee shop, with some dear friends for evening treats. I sat there enjoying my chammomile rosehip tea, sea salt caramel, and the pleasure of fine company . . . and all of a sudden realized I was supposed to go to Lucia's for lunch the day Karis was born. That morning I sent an e-mail to my friend and told her I wouldn't be at lunch because I was going to have a baby!

Yet another full circle has been something a little more personal and obscure, but here it is. When Trevor and I were engaged, I started reading the Anne of Green Gables (you know, only about 10 years behind of when little girls start reading them . . . but they were on the shelf and I felt somehow they'd be good for light fiction reading during my senior year of college). Anyways, the first three books in the series fit so perfectly into all that I experienced that year - Anne's adventures intertwined with her deep friendships and her falling in love with Gilbert Blythe offered so many parallels to how I was feeling about finishing school, leaving behind friends, and starting a "new" life with Trevor. I remember pulling out many quotes and sharing them with my best friend, and also weaving them into a story I wrote for Trevor during our engagement.

So after having Karis I was again in the mood for some light and fun reading, and what do I stumble on but the 4th - 6th books in the "Anne series" (not sure how I missed those the first time around?). I just finished the 6th this morning, and am again amazed at how the stories had parallels in my life for this season of motherhood. I read about Anne's blissful days with Gilbert in their house of dreams, then about the start of their family, and about her adventures as a mother (to six children - certainly that can't be a parallel, right?). In any case, it's been very special to read these books during such distinct times in my life. Books are such treasures.

And so I'll end for now with an Anne quote:

Anne's son, Jem, says, "Mummy, will you tell me a bedtime story that will send a cold chill down my spine? And sit beside me afterwards till I go to sleep?

Anne says, "What else are mothers for, darling?"

Indeed. It's so good to be a mom.

One of the first smiles

Karis in a gown and bonnet made by her great great great Grandmother on the DeKrey side (over 100 years old! The bonnet and gown, that is)

Napping buddies, so precious

A play date with baby Turner

This morning with dad

Cliches are true for a reason

I fell asleep last night laughing to myself, thinking of all the things I said I'd "never" do as a mother (before I became a mother, of course):

I said I would never have our baby sleep in our bed.

I said I would try to never use a pacifier.

I said I would never be the mom who can't leave her baby for more than an hour.

I said I would never cut my hair short after becoming a mom.

I said I would never be the wife/mom who knows it all and needs to correct her husband when he is doing something "wrong" in the baby care department.

I said I would never (well, hardly ever anyways) use disposable diapers.

Well, now I say, "Never say never".

Karis sleeps so well in the boppy in our bed (where I can, of course, hold the pacifier to her mouth in case she spits it out and fusses as she falls asleep). So there's the first two nevers - when one needs sleep, one is SO excited to learn that a pacifier really does pacify.

I can hardly go to Target alone without wanting to rush back and just look at Karis and hold her and make sure she's okay. Some days I think it would be nice to go sit by myself for a cup of coffee, and then after a said Target run without Karis in the back seat to keep me company, I don't think I could sit still in Caribou long enough to finish even a small decaf.

I have a hair cut appointment this coming Monday, and all I can think about is how good it would feel to do something drastic to my locks. It's hard to do anything drastic to hair without chopping a good bit of it off.

I admit to (hopefully mostly gently but unfortunately not always as gently as I'd like) correcting Trevor's ways of diapering, soothing, holding. I try to refrain, really I do. My will is so weak.

We were given generous amounts of disposable diapers, so why not use them, right? I love them, really I do. I am asked often "How is cloth diapering going?" and I either answer honestly, or use the cop-out that "Karis is too small for them right now." Which, she is. Kind of.

We're all doing well here, loving every day with this dear daughter God has gifted to us. She's more expressive every day, and we think her first smile will light up her face any day now. Our days fly by, and we've enjoyed fun things like a tea party here with a couple dear moms and daughters, former co-workers came over for dinner one evening, visits to see Uncle Drew, and other random occasions. Now we're packing up to head back home to spend a long weekend with our families. We can't wait for Karis to be with her grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, cousin, and friends.

I mean, doesn't this just look cozy?

Summer dresses have been so fun for dressing Karis

My stunning cousin Hope on her wedding day

Karis looks very thrilled to be going to church

Proud Parents

Oh my the weeks fly. This week especially has been one of firsts for Karis:

Her first photo shoot. My dear friend from college came to our house and shot some awesome pics of Karis. Check them out at her photography blog. We think Karis is quite the stunning model.

Her first airplane ride took place a couple days ago as we flew into Bozeman, MT for my dear cousin's wedding (hopefully more on that later - it was truly the most amazing wedding I think I've ever been to). Karis was amazing! She hardly cried, she nursed on the way up and down and the pressure didn't seem to bother her a bit. I held my breath the whole time, of course.

Her first wedding, as mentioned above. Again, she was amazing! Slept through the wedding and part of the reception, woke up a bit for part of the dance and showed her beautiful bright eyes to many who held her.

Her first major blowouts. Some changes of clothes and a bath were very necessary. Uff da!

We're loving our little vacation in Montana, the grandparents are loving on her with hands and hearts and I think Karis has been held 24/7 for the past few days. What a blessed life!

And Hope, if you should read this, congratulations and thank ou for letting us share in the joy of your wedding. It was the most precious time for all of us and we are so thrilled for you and Joey!