Returning to Awe

 When I was little, I used to have an imagination.

I was the kid creating elaborate story lines out of the lives of my stuffed animals and Barbies -– stories that had nothing to do with Ken or Barbie's clothes or vehicle choices. I had two guinea pigs (not concurrently) and I remember building intricate cardboard castles for them to live in and chew their way out of. I used to write fiction stories and submit them to young adult magazines for publication. Clearly, I was a nerd, but I was an imaginative, happy nerd, full of naïveté.

I don't know when I lost that imagination and that dreamer gaze. By the time I was in high school, I had focused more on the tangible and what I could see and touch and experience. The world is an enormous, beautiful, interesting place and the people God has filled it with, even more fascinating. I shifted my focus from what was in my head to what was in front of my eyes. 

In some ways, I think it has been a good shift. I've never really dealt well in abstractions and uncertainties, and I appreciate the concrete and the genuine. The change of focus and waning of my imagination has led me to see more clearly what is happening in the world around me and to spend less time in my own head. It has challenged me to dig deep to look for the beauty that God has already placed there. It has encouraged me to be more aware of the world and the people in it. 

In some ways, it has made me a cynic. If I can't see and experience it for myself, it doesn't have worth to me. It has made me less empathetic, for when people begin talking about dreams and hopes, with no concrete backing, I zone out. I'm finding myself more jaded and only aware of beauty when it slaps me in the face. I've gotten lazy at looking for the preciousness in life.

Compared to the exciting, exotic life I imagined as a child, my life now is pretty mundane. I don't travel frequently. I don't eat new cuisines or at new restaurants. Strangers kind of scare me, so I don't meet many new people or push myself to learn their stories. In a lot of ways, though my head acknowledges that this world is enormous, beautiful and interesting, I have stopped looking for the beauty in the ordinary. My enthusiasm for life, for the gospel, for the gloriousness of Christ has grown dim and dull, and I'm ready for a change.

My heart yearns to be swept up in beauty. I yearn to create again and mimic the Author of Life and Creator. I honestly don't know what that will look like. I'm spitballing here. 

This next month has some opportunities for photo shoots on the horizon, so I will hopefully be able to get some imaginative, creative juices flowing with those. I want to blog more, to write and express my heart. It doesn't have to be a big change though, as what I want to recapture is a sense of wonder in the everyday, extraordinary moments. One thought I've had is that this month, rather than trying to Instagram a photo challenge someone else has created, is just to take a picture of something that points me back to the Creator everyday. It doesn't have to be monumental – just something that reminds me of the goodness and wonder and mystery and beauty of God. Maybe I'll blog each week a recap of that week's photos. And as an added challenge, I'm going to try and use my camera, not just my phone.

Am I alone in this desire to create and behold and return to a childlike sense of wonder? If I am, in fact, not alone (as I suspect), how do you challenge yourself to see the beauty in the life God has given you, right where you are?

6 Months of Selah

Selah celebrated her 1/2 birthday the other day. I'm pretty sure she didn't even know she was celebrating, but alas, it happened! She is now a 6-month old and is closer to a 1-year old than a brand-new baby. C-R-A-Z-Y.

Selah at 6-months

 It seems like just a couple of weeks ago that I posted her 5-month update, so there's not a ton new to tell. At her check-up, she weighed in at 17 lbs, 5 oz., (73%) and 27.25 in long (95%). Still a long, tall Sally! She is fitting more comfortably in 9-month clothes than in 6-month clothes, due to her long torso and long legs. She's using those long legs more and more. She LOVES to stand holding onto our legs or hands for support and she will happily bounce for as long as we let her (or as long as her stomach holds out). She does this cute little bounce when I'm carrying her over my shoulder where she uses her arms to pull up and kicks against me to go up and down and up and down and up and down. She also does the bounce when she's laying across us on her stomach. Girl likes to move, and I would not be surprised by crawling at any point.

Speaking of cute things, there are a couple of cute new developments in her repertoire. She has begun sounding out more things, usually "buh" and "mah" sounds. We're trying to teach her to say "Benny" and "Mama" when she's making those noises, but she usually just laughs at us :) Often times it results in her just blowing bubbles and spitting a lot.

Even within the last few days, she has developed a new facial expression that I LOVE. She crinkles up her nose and smiles really big with her mouth wide open. It's maybe a pantomime of our open-mouthed, eyebrows-up face we both do all the time, but Seh has picked up on it and it's so adorable. Still no teeth visible, so for now it's a lovely toothless grin.

This month has brought lots of visits to the zoo, where Selah loves to watch the tigers play, the monkeys hop around and the komodo dragon stick its tongue out. It's actually been as interesting to watch the animals' reactions to her as her reactions to the animals.

She still nurses like a champ and eats 5 times a day, with her nightly bottle up to 9 ounces and occasionally a little extra nursing on top of that. It seems to have helped her settled back into a 11-12 hour sleep pattern!! She goes to sleep by 10:30 pm and sometimes wakes up to play by herself in her crib between 8:30-9 am, but then goes back to sleep until 10:30 when she eats. She is still sleeping swaddled at night, but we're transitioning her out of it by leaving one arm out during naptimes. We've found she frequently rolls over and grabs the bars of the crib when one arm is out though, so his mom bought a breathable liner that I just installed. She got so tuckered out waiting for me to finish that she just put her own pacifier in and went to sleep, no swaddle at all. That's a win!
We need to start her on solids, so we have some rice cereal to try out, but I'm not going to lie - I really am not gung-ho on having her do solids anytime soon. It's so much easier to just nurse her or take a bottle, rather than have to prepare other foods for her. The doctor said she can eat a little of what we eat, mashed up of course, but something about putting bagels and pizza near her doesn't sound wise or healthy :/ I know she gets my diet anyways, but it sure seems different when it's straight up crap without my body filtering it!

Selah is such a delight and joy to us. Adrian's mom is in town and gave us a date night the other night and even though we thoroughly enjoyed and needed the time away as a couple, we both admitted we missed her after a couple hours. Not sure how WE'LL handle a long anniversary trip away this fall! Kidding. Kind of. Beaches and no schedule could make it worth the separation ;) We're so looking forward to all the little milestones yet to come, but we're truly loving this stage she's in right now. She is so fun and such a blessing to us all (except Ben. He's still scared of her).

Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to post about some other stuff going on in our life soon, other than just the joy of Selah!