A Holy Groan

Hello...It's Blake. I'm not sure this whole fatherhood thing has really hit me yet...i'm not sure it will any time soon. Right now with Lilly it's a lot of precious holding, feeding, burping, not so precious poopy diaper changes, etc. Somehow in the midst of all of this, God finds ways to teach me about aspects of himself, about his character, and about his word. They pop up at random, sometimes during the hectic moments and sometimes in the quiet times. I have been humbled over the past 8 weeks by God's revelations.

Take this example. Lilly has really turned into a huge grunter/groaner...no, not the respiratory distress/autoPEEP type of grunting (shout out to all my colleagues) but simply a gutteral, back of the throat vocalization that emerges at different times. I think she get's it from me because I recognize this sound coming from myself with 2am calls from nurses asking for an inpatient order, or from obese people who won't walk down a single flight of stairs and so make the elevator stop at every floor on the way down...I digress. Seriously, it is a cute sound that she makes whenever she is uncomfortable, is getting hot or cold, or just wants some attention (aka, somebody to hold her). After a few minutes of these groans, she will get really serious and just start wailing (see obligatory blog picture post below!) I started thinking about these grunts and it reminded me of Romans 8:26, "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."

This was not-so-much a groan as a full blown scream...How cute are her bunny slippers?!?

Lilly knows when she needs something from me. Although she cannot express these needs yet with words, her groans do the job. In the same way, I know that with all things fatherhood and life, I struggle to know what to pray for. Especially when I consider my daughter and all things surrounding her, I get overwhelmed. Her physical safety, her emotional needs, her self esteem, how to respond when other kids are mean to her (jaclyn told me that physical harm is both non-christian and illegal..shame), how to show her God's Love, not to mention all the things that I haven't even thought about yet. It is good to know that the Holy Spirit knows all these things, that the Spirit takes over and that with a groan, an intensely emotional cry for help, presents them to the Father.

That is when God really gives me an insight into Himself. When Lilly starts her groans, all I want to do is to make them stop, to let her know that I am here and to show her that all is well. I will literally do anything in my power to help her. I know that our Heavenly Father is the same way. One prayer as Jaclyn and I continue this journey that is parenthood is that God would continue to teach us in ways such as this.

I must have been NUTS! (Beware a massive post, but Lilly smiles at the end)

Following our retarded decision to listen to James Taylor in the rain, we embarked on what was to become the single most "un-restful" vacation I have ever had. This is not to say that it was not super fun, I just have not been on a vacation with a 6-7 week old before, and it is way more stressful than you might expect. Or perhaps I had been just hopefully optimistic and it was just as stressful as you might imagine. I have never nursed in so many unconventional, and somewhat uncomfortable settings, one of which involved a car ride from the Biltmore house to the wedding site of a one Miss Robyn Blanton following pictures that went a little over and a Lilly meltdown, see pic below...

It all began on Wednesday the 6th of May. I have two best friends from college, Robyn and Mary. Well Robyn was getting married in Asheville, NC at the Biltmore on May 9th, a date set prior to the twinkle of Lilly. I had bought the bridesmaid dress in my size before finding out I was pregnant. I then returned it and bought it one size up which I thought was the biggest they had. After realizing that this did not fit at about week 10 of pregnancy I had little hope the dress would fit one month post-partum, so I returned it, destined to screw up all pictures with my non-uniform look. This winter when I was becoming more round by the second, J.Crew in their infinite wisdom, knowing the stress of screwing up the pictures for the wedding of a lifetime, came out with a bigger size. Ok... I digress. Anyway, Wednesday after picking up the dress from last minute reconstructions at the best seamstress in the world's house, we were off to Nashville to break up the trip. We are unable to get to Nashville without stopping at least once to feed Lilly, this day was no different. We spent the night in Nashville and then proceeded to Knoxville where we met my best friend from med school, Malinda. Malinda grew up on a massive dairy farm, and she and I felt like we needed to rub Lilly on the baby cows in decrease the likelihood of her being plagued by allergies. While we heeded Blake's concern and did not rub her on the cows, she did get a baby cow kiss!

Me, Malinda and Lilly with the baby calves
Lilly's Jersey Kiss

After spending the afternoon in Knoxville, it was off to Asheville to introduce Lilly to Robyn before the festivities. They were instant friends. For most of the weekend she was an absolute angel. In, fact people thought she never cried. She definitely debunked that theory during the formal pictures. Mom arrived Friday to watch Lilly during the wedding so Blake and I could dance the night away. I have never tried to get myself ready as well as keeping up with the feeding schedule of an infant and keep myself and her clean prior to massive pictures and keep her away from the bride so that she did not spit up on something important. For the most part she was good, but towards the end... you know the most important part, it got dicey. I had to feed her and get myself dressed and calm her down all during pictures... DISASTER. Robyn was gracious, but I felt terrible. The picture experience escalated as we went to different places on the estate to take pics. I chose to stay with Robyn to fulfill my matron of honor duties, and Blake had a go with Lilly. Needless to say things went haywire when pictures went past feeding time.

Daddy/daughter bonding (still in the clear)Our attempt at a family portrait before the meltdown
Blake's attempt at artistry. Not half bad.
A quite comical moment when a bird pooped on both Robyn and DG simultaneously. I graciously gave her a spit bath, given our limited resources.

This begins to represent how Lilly felt about the whole ordeal!
And this pretty much wraps it up in a nutshell.

All that being said, the wedding was amazing. I will definitely post about it later, but check out how HOT Robyn looks! Not to take away from how sad Lilly appears!

Robyn in route to meet DG in the gardens... doesn't she look beautiful!
I should be so lucky to count her among my best friends. It is a joy to walk through life with her. Done and done... she is a married woman.

Following the wedding we had a meaningful brunch with Mom for mother's day in the hotel lobby, at her request. I was planning something much more special but she needed to hit the road.
She spent half of breakfast talking with other guests... that's my mom! Here Blake is saying "Happy Mother's Day Ruth Ann, glad I could fix you a waffle."
Lilly has the great fortune of seeing both her grandmas for Mother's day.

We contemplated visiting the estate as tourist but after seeing the line to go in, hit the road for the second part of our marathon trip... Gatlinburg, TN with the Bergerons.

words cannot express how much I love the mountains. I will move back there one day!

It was great to be able to see all the moms on mother's day. Something that I am sure will not happen every year, and was particularly meaningful since they are now grandmothers.

All of the sudden Nonnie doesn't mind having her picture made! Let's hear it for 4 generations!
Part of my requested activities were shopping at the outlets and visiting the Aquarium. I got to pet a sting ray, and almost got eaten by a shark...

While in the mountains we were able to take a little hike, and Lilly saw her first waterfall. She was in excellent shape and was not even out of breath. I on the other hand was reminded how much she hurt my back when I was pregnant!

Here we stroll.
We made it!
Possible Christmas card preview!

After being gone for just at 1 week, we finally returned home and began the process of teaching Lilly to sleep in her own bed. It is now 5/22 and we are still trying to get her to take naps, but whatever!

In other news, we saw her smile for sure on May 15th. It is so great, she now smiles all the time, well at least whenever we change her diaper.

Carolina in my mind...

A temporary lack of judgment resulted in Blake and I attending my second ever James Taylor concert. You might say I have come full circle, as my first concert was after I graduated from high school 10 years ago, and now on the brink of graduating from medical school I had the opportunity to enjoy his acoustic mastery once again. James Taylor came to Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival making it the cheapest ticket you could hope for to see him. This would be well and fine if it did not rain every year... a mess so large that the locals of Memphis ( I suppose that would include me at this point) call it the Beale Street Mud Fest, and rarely to we make the mistake of buying a three day pass because it ineveitably rains 2 of 3 days. This year was no different, but with Grammy in town to watch lilly, there was no way I was going to miss my man, rain or shine. and RAIN it did.

Here we are prepared... or so we thought...

It was a HUGE mess. In fact James even called us out of our minds... happily out of our minds I would argue. Luckily I am into outdoor gear so I had little problem. Though not pictured here, I acutally had on rain pants as well. I remained mostly dry throughout. Blake on the other hand did not fare as well in his crocks!

and this isn't even the worst spot!
I forgot to mention that snoop dog was also there... a minor attraction compared to the man!
We were obviously close... we took these pictures.

The concert was amazing, click the video for a little taste of james live!