Misc.


Family and Misc.23 May 2007 01:00 pm

As a woman who has given birth twice in the last three years, birthdays are something I view now with a sense of renewed significance. This total miracle that that day is, the day when raw life is celebrated in all of its beauty and terror, should never be lost on us as we look toward those we love on their “happy days”.

Today is Doug’s birthday, a day when not one but TWO little Haub boys staked their claim on the planet, and I marvel at how that little miracle in some hospital room changed the course of my life. It is too little to say that I am grateful for the man who is my companion, lover and friend. It is too small a thing to say that I appreciate him. What I can say is that he is the only one I want by my side in this journey; the only partner I can imagine ever desiring.

When I called Doug at lunchtime to sing Happy Birthday to him with Mercy, he was wistful in remembering how three years ago I was showing up at his office to surprise him with a birthday getaway to Carpinteria for a romantic, beach front weekend. Picnics at dusk, seal-watching, and lots of surfing made for a perfect escape, and it was lying in the bed of our bed-n-breakfast watching a movie one night that Doug first felt our little Mercy kick. Times have changed a bit around here, and the extent of romance in the house this morning was a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios in bed (which he mostly shared with his two hungry kiddos who thought it was very silly for Daddy to be eating his cereal in the bed). And I guess what I love is how much I love him in both of these very different seasons.

Happy Birthday, Doug. Voooooooooommmmmaaaaaaarrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!

South Central and Family and Misc.19 May 2007 08:49 pm

You know you are at a park in Pasadena when…

  • your children are the only kids there not wearing Crocs.
  • the primary athletic event is Ultimate Frisbee.
  • between you and your husband, you know half the people playing frisbee.
  • every other parent pushing their kid on the swings is on their cell phone.
  • the parking lot could be mistaken for a Honda Odyssey showroom.

Husbands who say the words: “I’ll take both the kids to Ikea with me so that you can…” to the dead-tired pregnant woman mid-afternoon should be knighted (or should at least get a lot of foot rubs).

Being pregnant has some distinct advantages at the grocery store: the deli guy must have given me six pieces of meat to eat while he was slicing our turkey.

Grocery shopping can actually be almost relaxing without children (especially with a Starbucks latte in hand, thank you Jennifer!).

It seems that whenever I am scheduled to preach, there is inevitably a very loud party in close proximity to our house. Today was First Communion, so half of our neighborhood is that incredibly large party. Should be an interesting sermon tomorrow morning…

UPDATE: one crying infant and a grumpy worship-leader later, the party next-door seems to be settling down and my sermon is mostly finished.

About an hour ago, in the midst of our neighbor’s celebrations of their little girl’s religious rite of passage, there were a few rounds of gunfire exchanged at the end of our street, and a helicopter had the spot painted for some time. Jefferson was shut down and a large number of police and emergency vehicles could be seen. I am assuming at this point that someone was shot, but I don’t know anything more at this time.

Nope, there’s the music again…It’s going to be a late night.

Family and Friends and Misc.14 May 2007 08:58 am

The kids and I missed church again this week: Aaron was a snot factory (as I like to call it) and I can’t bear to bring my kids to the nursery when they are like that. I see other moms and dads do it, and it almost always means that later in the week we come down with something in our household. So, I decided that we should keep our sniffles to ourselves and instead we spent a nice morning with a good friend and her daughter (who was also sick and avoiding the nursery for the same reasons) here at our house.

We actually took the kids in to see Dr. Jamie this past week because of a strange rash on Mercy. It turns out that there is a 50% chance that she has Fifths Disease, a totally harmless virus that, while having no serious ramifications for the child can be life-threatening to unborn babies in women in the first half of their pregnancies. So, sometime today I will make my way to the OB yet again, this time for a blood test to determine whether or not I have contracted the virus. I was feeling pretty optimistic earlier since Mercy’s rash did not totally look like the pictures I found on the internet, however yesterday Aaron started showing a light rash that is much more in the traditional pattern of Fifths Disease. So, please pray that the virus has not found its way to me and my baby, and pray also for my dear friend who is also in early pregnancy and has been around me and the kids this past week.

Last night Doug took us (and Lauren, the other “mom” in our household!) out for a nice dinner at California Pizza Kitchen in Manhattan Beach. We had a great time, and every manager/assistant manager came to our table (and only ours) at least once to personally greet us and see how our meal was. We couldn’t tell if they thought we were someone we weren’t or if it was just random–there were lots of other families with kids and moms, so it couldn’t have just been the Mothers Day thing. Regardless, it was nice to be treated so well.

After the kids went down, I talked with my mom for a bit and then Doug and I curled up and watched “Akeelah and the Bee.” It is one of those heartwarming stories about the little ghetto girl who achieves the impossible, but it was sweet (made me cry) and fun to watch because so much of it was filmed in our immediate neighborhood. Laurence Fishburne’s house in the film is just up the street on Kenwood, and we remember when they were doing the filming. It’s always interesting to see what our hood looks like on the big screen!

Family and Misc.10 May 2007 02:31 pm

“Mercy, it’s time to get ready for your night-night.”

“I don’t want to do ANYTHING but NOT take a night-night!”

South Central and Family and Misc.09 May 2007 10:28 am

This past week, we noticed a busy little hummingbird outside of the kids’ room windows. The hummingbirds usually buzz around the palm trees, but this one seemed intent on visiting the strand of porch lights. At some point, we realized he/she was building a nest, and we decided that his/her name was Sam. I just dumped photos off of the digital camera this morning and found this one that Doug took the other night when he was out there:

sam.jpg

I don’t know what it is, but having Sam move in has touched me with a little sense of peace and even joy. And though Sam is a hummingbird, every time I see him I recall the words of a song we used to sing at Irvington Covenant: “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me…”

Family and Los Angeles and Misc.27 Apr 2007 04:10 pm

We went to see our OB this morning, and we were once again reassured that everything looks fine with our baby. I am less sore and a bit more functional today, and we received the wonderful surprise last night of Doug’s mom coming from Oregon to spend a few days with us to help out. Phone calls, emails and of course the kind comments here have given me some much needed encouragement as well.

This morning at our doctor’s appointment, the OB we saw had not heard the news about the car accident and she was of course totally horrified. What was funny and a bit ironic was that she had already planned to ask us if we would be one of seven couples from their practice to participate in the filming of a show for the Discovery Channel. She was quite diplomatic about it (and of course quick to tell us that we could say no) as she described that they were looking for a diverse set of women/couples that would represent the range of things that can happen during a pregnancy. I guess we are kind of the ideal candidates. Someone already commented that if they used us they might only need one or two other couples because we cover so much!

I don’t know if we will choose to participate, but it made us laugh and say as we do in such moments: “Because we live in L.A….”

Family and Faith and Friends and Misc.26 Apr 2007 10:22 am

After a wonderful long weekend with Doug in downtown Chicago and a delightful (very full!) day on North Park’s campus, I was exhausted but joyful as I headed out the door of a nearby coffee shop with a young woman I had just met (thanks to this blog) the hour before. It was raining and dark, and she was heading to the bus stop across the street to return home to Humboldt Park. I needed to walk the few blocks back to my host home, and we were laughing and chatting about being ill-prepared for the rain. As we stepped into the crosswalk, with the light, I saw a white taxi cab heading North on Kimball begin to turn in our direction. I assumed he planned to stop before he got to us but that was not the case. Claiming later that he did not see us, he struck me first, throwing me to the ground, and then hitting Rebecca.

A kind woman immediately stopped her car and told us that she was calling 911. The cab driver stopped as well, apologizing profusely. I got up right away from the ground but I was very concerned for Rebecca who was still down. She said she was okay, but we both knew that we needed to get checked out. I remembering just standing there, in the rain, saying to whoever was listening: “I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.”

Very quickly an unmarked car pulled up and two guys stepped out and started barking orders and talking in radios. Suddenly a blue light was flashing inside their car, and they ushered me to their back seat. Now, earlier in the day it had probably come up four or five times that I have my set of fears and suspicions concerning the Chicago Police Department. As I crawled into the back seat of some men who I hoped were Chicago cops, I was struck by the irony.

Fortunately I had my host’s phone number in my bag, and as soon as I told Bob what had happened he said he would be right there. He arrived moments later and stayed by my side for the next two hours as Rebecca and I were transported to Swedish Covenant in an ambulance, and for the duration of my time there. He very gently prayed for me in the ER, as did Rebecca in the back of the ambulance, and I was so grateful for the love shown by these two people. I also managed a phone call home to my sister who was watching our kids while Doug was at his “Job and Human Suffering” class at Fuller. She got a hold of Doug and he called me back in tears. Having just walked through the very dark place of facing the loss of our baby six weeks ago, neither of us had much reserve to handle that prospect once again.

The pains in my stomach were terrifying for me. When the doctor started the ultrasound, I was relieved to see our little one moving, heart beating, and to hear her say that she could not see any damage anywhere. As she concluded the ultrasound, she said to me that she didn’t see any need to do a CT at this point, and she didn’t want to expose the baby to that high level of radiation unless necessary. “You are only at eighteen weeks. If you were a little further along, we would send you upstairs and monitor the baby for an hour or so with the external fetal monitor.” Then she looked at me, and I could see on her face that she was going to say Those Words: “But, since the baby is not yet viable, there would really be no reason to do that since there would be nothing we could do.”

Right after I found out I was pregnant this time, I spoke at Pasadena Covenant Church during their Sunday worship. A family introduced themselves to me afterwards, and I learned that the man was Todd Johnson, a new professor of worship and theology at Fuller who had previously taught at North Park. I had heard such great things about him from some friends, and I was pleased to meet him and his wife and kids. When I told them that Doug and I were expecting our third child, he did something strange: he spoke a blessing over the tiny little baby in my womb. He commented that the church doesn’t do anything to recognize the new life of babies until once they have been born and he said that this can be a great cause of grief for women who lose their babies for whatever reason before they are born. He blessed my little one with words that spoke to what I as the mother already knew to be true: this child is a gift of God; this child is a new creation; this child is beloved. This was before hernias and surgeries and taxi cabs, but how his simple act of offering that blessing has been present to me as we have passed through these dark places.

I am home now, much sorer than I ever would have imagined being as a result of being struck. I can hardly walk and sitting is painful, and we are scheduled to visit our OB tomorrow morning just to check again on our little one. I know that I have much to praise God for in terms of all that he did NOT permit to happen on Tuesday night. But I am feeling a bit down and discouraged nonetheless. As I said to Doug: “This is starting to feel personal.”

I haven’t heard back from my blogging friend, Rebecca, so I am hoping and praying for her wellness, and every time I move with pain I am reminded that she is likely feeling much the same right now. I am thrilled to be back home with my precious kiddos, and I will take the time later today or tomorrow to reflect more on my time at North Park. The day was rich with conversations with students and opportunities to reconnect with people who were dear to me when I lived there, and yes, Scot, I think I did drink close to ten cups of coffee that day!

Writing and Misc.21 Apr 2007 09:06 am

I will be taking a few days off from writing here, so please check back on Wednesday!

Writing and Misc.16 Apr 2007 09:41 am

One of my favorite bloggers, More Than Stone, has honored me with the Thinking Blogger’s Award. Thanks, Jamie!

So, now I am to pass the honor on to 5 blogs that make me think. So here goes…

Jamie-Arpin Ricci

Bill Kinnon

Don Johnson

John Santic

Maurice Broaddus

Your mission (if you are one of the tagged), should you choose to accept it, is to pay it forward as well … the rules are simple and they are three:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is the gold version and the silver to better meet your needs for blogolicious decorating).

And enjoy the blogs……

South Central and Family and Misc.11 Apr 2007 09:09 am

s-the-bullet.jpg

This is the photo I took of our bullet last night before I went to bed.

« Previous PageNext Page »