Both hands free, no little feet traipsing behind me, no little heads to check are clear of it’s swing – I open the door.

They’re home, all of them, and I’m here and good grief this is liberating. I eye the cake display. I debate between the lemon blueberry cheese cake and a red velvet cupcake. Or maybe I don’t need either. I am getting a coffee, after all, and dinner is not that long past. But there’s only one piece of cheesecake left and about 4 people in front of me.

I tell myself “If it’s still there when you ring up, indulge.”

From the side entrance, she comes around the back of the cafe. This friend of mine, available at a moment’s (ok, 15 minutes’) notice for a one on one date on a Sunday at 7pm, we have a funny story.

Once college classmates, yet I could not have picked her from many the other 600 people with whom we graduated. Funny to think we once sat on a too-small stage for an entire commencement ceremony some 800 miles from here and didn’t know each other at the time.

We hug.

Then we hum, haw, what drink to order to go with my… I see the empty spot where the cheesecake once was. O well. Medium latte it is, but with only one shot, lest I don’t sleep tonight. She has cocoa, smart choice. I buy.

The barista brings out our drinks and we laugh giddily together; both glasses towered impossibly high with whipped cream.

Corner booth, straight down the wall from the corner booth we sat the first time we met. We slide in.

Then, I had my first baby with me, 4 months old. Walking up she looked familiar, but as we got to talking, it was unlikely that we had ever crossed paths at our alma mater. We probably wouldn’t have crossed paths here in Minnesota either had it not been for the internet.

We’re not allowed to talk kids this time, though and I stated that from the beginning (for my own sake). This is my time. They are home and I am here and I can breathe. I attempt a sip of my latte and get a face full of whipped cream instead. We discuss cars. There’s always something with cars, isn’t there? We discuss houses and real estate  markets and interest rates. We discuss the goings ons of mutual friends. We laugh about… well, I can’t tell you. Slowly, in creeps the topic of theology.

Her email was sweet and appreciated. She said that she lives in the Twin Cities and, ‘I love reading your blog! My husband and I went to Wheaton, too. What year did you graduate?’ I replied, shared our majors, dropped some possible mutual friend names. Then on a whim I asked if she’d ever want to meet up for lunch with a cute baby boy and maybe his mama.

A youth pastor and a fellow alum, I thought her a good person to bounce thoughts off of about a recent sermon at our church. It got under my skin in that way that sermons can when something doesn’t align with your own doctrine, your own understandings and grasping at the mystery of it all.

I make headway on my whipped cream.

She didn’t think I was crazy for asking if we could meet (after she confirmed that she was not, in fact, an axe murderer, of course). Lunch it was, I picked the cafe, she picked the corner booth. We talked life after college, husbands, Minnesota weather, blogging, and I nursed my baby. An immediate friendship was born.

We talk out hypotheticals.

“If God regretted it, then did He have foreknowledge of it? And if He had the foreknowledge of it but knew that He would ultimately work it together good, would He regret it?…”

“And if His big-picture-Will for our lives is to bring Him glory, highest glory, how detailed does His will get? Was there someone else I could have married within His will? Does He care if I live here instead there? Should I wear a blue shirt today?”

Two years later, I still have a 4 month old, but tonight he waits for me at home. My once 4 month old nursling is now a brave, strong 2 year old. Iron sharpens iron as our thoughts roll over and under and through the ways that are not our ways. I love these conversations. Finite minds pondering the infinite.

Same cafe, new booth. Same friends, new depth of friendship. Same God, new understanding.

Funny how God works, isn’t it?

It’s OBaby’s first birthday, but you are the ones getting the presents! How great is that?

My connection with Written Art just might be my favorite story from blogville of late.

(Does the name sound familiar? You may have noticed her lovely banner over here —->)

See, Ann of Written Art was on my friend Gussy’s blog one day when there was a post about the inappropriate number of cupcakes  Gussy and I had eaten together and Ann thought to herself, ‘Sheesh that other girl’s face looks awfully familiar. Like I’ve met her or something?’

Ann did a little blogvestigation and turns out we went to college together. True story. Also true? Ann of Written Art is an incredible Christ follower with a beautiful, sincere, and precious heart for Him. I remember a chapel talk she gave as a student chaplain to the women on campus about our beauty in God’s eyes. The fact that I remember a chapel speech should tell you something about just how inspiring she is.

(Not that I didn’t love chapel. Or anything. ::waves hi to other Wheaton alums who may be reading this::)

These days Ann is still creating beautiful and inspiring things, but now they are on canvas instead of on the chapel stage. Isn’t her art lovely?

You can follow Ann’s wonderful blog here and her tweets here. (No, seriously, go read her beautiful reflections on life in her blog.)

I am thrilled to announce that O My Family is giving away a $30 shop credit to Written Art in celebration of OBaby’s first birthday!

Leaving a comment on this post is all you have to do to enter! Of course, for those over achievers, you can gain one extra entry by tweeting this:

O how I love Written Art! Check out @AnnSwindell’s giveaway in #OMyBirthdayBash by @OMyFamily here: http://bit.ly/d5QtfC

Just tweet it and come back here to leave ONE ADDITIONAL comment on this post letting me know that you tweeted and what your twitter name is.

Even if you don’t win this giveaway, OBaby and Written Art have generously provided the following discount code which will give you 15% off of any Written Art orders: Summer15

Isn’t that nice of them?

This giveaway closes at 10:00pm CST Friday July 16th (which also happens to be my baby’s first birthday). The winner will be announced on Saturday.

Good luck!

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Disclosure: Written Art has provided the spoils of this giveaway today, as well as the refresh canvas seen above that she so kindly sent me (which now sits happily on a shelf in my bedroom). While Written Art is paying the monetary costs of this giveaway, money cannot buy my opinions. Those are priceless.

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This giveaway is part of the O My First Birthday Bash celebration. You can see all of the wonderful giveaways in celebration of OBaby’s birthday here.

O, and don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more O My First Birthday Bash giveaways. There’s O so much more celebrating yet to come!

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“What kind of people live in a place like that?”

There were 5 of them, apparently. Two parents and his three younger siblings. All blond haired, blue eyed and Scandanavian also. We had been dating for about 8 weeks, I was DanO’s first official girlfriend (although people who knew him in high school will be quick to remind him of that one girl, I’m told I’m the first to actually have the title), and I was memorizing names and ages in preparation for a trip to his home for Fall Break. I was going to meet the fam for the first time.

Last week was the 5th anniversary of that first very, very nervous first meeting of my (unbeknownst to them) future family in-law, and it has been a wonderful 5 years. I’d like you to meet the three friends I now get to call siblings thanks to this lil’ shiny thing on my left hand.

(That fateful first meeting. I apologize for the 1.3 megapixel camera image. It was practically a millennium ago as far as digital photography technology is concerned.)

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There is OBrother, when I first met him, he was in the middle of his high school career. He had grown up only 19 months behind DanO and had been his co-architect for many an art project, tunnel fort, and home-made explosive. Did I mention I’m excited to raise a boy, DanO’s son, no less? They’ve been attached at the hip since they could finger paint. These days they like to talk endlessly about operating systems, why one should take images in RAW format, and Stargate movie releases.

(Just another typical night with the OBrothers.)

And LittlestO. She was 7 at the “O My Family, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Allison” gathering, but now at almost 13 she is just as spunky and fun as when I first met her. She loves to create, whether it’s drawing, making cards or blogging about her adorable nephew, ahem. This girl, friends, this girl is full of joy for other people. Especially her nephew who, by the way, could go to the same school as his auntie LittlestO if we put him into kindergarten at the k-12 private school she attends for her senior in high school.

That is what can happen when you become a father at 22, folks.

Speaking of being a senior in high school, LadyO, the older of DanO’s two younger sisters (you may draw a diagram if needed) is about to be an O My College Student. Her senior year of high school is coming with all the necessary pomp and circumstance photo shoots that have become the American high schooler status quo.

Except, this is O My Family, where you don’t dare pay someone to do something that you (or someone you know, or you and the use of someone you know’s tools, or you plus all of the able bodied workers you know… you catch my drift) could do yourself. I’m sorry, how much did you say senior portraits cost?! Ho-lee Racket, and my parents thought it was bad 6 years ago.

So, I present to you the beautiful LadyO’s senior pictures, taken by Sir DanO himself.

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They were a tight group of sibs before I came along and I am absolutely blessed to have been welcomed in by each of them (I think giving them a stinkin’ adorable nephew to play with hasn’t hurt either… but I’m, fairly certain they loved me before that). I love you guys!

]]> http://omyfamilyblog.com/2009/11/o-my-husbands-siblings/feed/ 5 http://omyfamilyblog.com/2009/08/so-does-that-make-me-babystupid/ http://omyfamilyblog.com/2009/08/so-does-that-make-me-babystupid/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:07:00 +0000 AllisonO http://the.olfelts.com/?p=3179 I have been holding something in. I think it’s because my mother taught me not to step on people’s toes and this particular topic is incredibly tricky to handle in a non-tootsie stepping way.

Well, here it goes.

I am learning that parenting is this fabulous common ground that can provide for solid friendships based on empathy and understanding while simultaneously revealing deeply held and deeply different opinions on what works for your family. There’s this quote, I’m sure it was someone brilliant (Einstein? Edison?) who coined it, and heaven help me if I can’t remember it verbatim right now, but it goes something like this: “Voice your opinion loudly today, and if tomorrow it turns out you were wrong, voice your new opinion louder.”

Ok, horrible paraphrase, Allison.

I know but stick with me because that quote is the premise of what I’m about to say:

I do not agree with the BabyWise philosophy.

Many mothers that I love have used it and are using it and it has worked for them. But when preparing for this parenting thing (you know, that I’ve totally mastered in the last 6 weeks‚ *ahem*) I struggled with the overall idea that babies‚Äô cries can and should at times be ignored so as to help the baby ‘learn’ and fit into their parents’ schedule.

To be fair, I hadn’t read the book before I dismissed it as ‘not right for me’. Now I have read it and am declaring the same opinion I did yesterday.

Rather than dwelling on why I am not letting my son ‘cry it out’ for 10-15 minutes at a time in exchange for a solid night’s sleep, or ‘Becoming BabyWise’ as it were, can I tell you how I am treating OBaby’s cries and cues?**

I was often challenged by my professors in college to think of Christ as the Master Teacher. How did Jesus view his students? How did He challenge them, discipline them, respect and value them? Go then and do likewise was a common message of the Elementary Education department by which I was blessed to be taught.

I took this perspective and wanted to apply it to my parenting. God the Father as the Master Parent. How does He teach His children? Respond to their needs, discipline them, help them to see His will?

What I found was that the God of the Bible is very much present and with His children at all times and in all circumstances. This fits the name of Immanuel or, ‘God with us’. God was literally with Adam and Eve in the garden (until they screwed that up), with His people in the desert, and humbled Himself to again walk with His creation in the person of Christ Jesus. When Christ ascended, He left us “The Helper” to be in and with us until His return.

I’m sorry if I just lost you in a quick play by play of the Bible. Here’s what it means to me in everyday life and in parenting:

Having shed my share of teenage and adult tears over large and small things, I know that God is indeed with us when we hurt. Whether we cry for 5, 10, or 75 minutes over a lost soccer final, an ended relationship, or our parents’ divorce, His presence is constant. He would not allow one of His children to cry alone; in fact the Psalms tell me that He catches each tear I cry.

Does this mean that He always agrees with why I am crying? Not at all. His ways are not our ways and I know that most of the time my tears are being shed over something that is not eternally significant. But there He is, to catch each tear that falls and to comfort me, regardless.

Just as God is Immanuel to His children, so I desire to be with my son. It would break my heart for OBaby to feel alone when he is crying, whether it’s because he is gassy or because he is tired, both of which may seem trivial to me. Whether he cries for 45 seconds or 5 minutes, I want to be with him to comfort him in any way I can.

No, I am not a martyr, and no I am not omnipresent. Therefore, yes, I have left my son safely crying on a blanket or in his crib so that I could eat, get dressed, put things away, or USE THE BATHROOM for heaven’s sake, along with other things that allow me to still be a sane human being while caring deeply and daily for my baby.

Life is life and demands are demands, but to the best of my ability I would like to follow my Father’s lead as I learn what the heck it is that I’m doing here in these parenting shoes.

At least, that’s my opinion today. I will surely update you, as it could change tomorrow.

Or a hundred times over the next 18 years.

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*Please read with copious amounts of sarcasm and facetiousness.

**Of specific interest to me were pages 136-137 where author Gary Ezzo suggests leaving your infant to cry because it may turn out that “all that noise (which seemed interminable at the time) really only lasted five, ten, or fifteen minutes.” (Ezzo, 136, emphasis mine) He does of course suggest that if after those fifteen minutes the crying has not subsided, you should go ahead and check on your infant in case “your baby has become jammed into a corner” (Ezzo, 137).

And not just because I paid $65 dollars for those jeans from Abercrombie and Fitch that were meant to look old.

Look at 18 year old me, rockin’ it.

That knee hole was totally worth the extra cash.

I’d like you to meet fresh-out-of-high-school Allison (or, the artist formerly known as Allie). Over the summer after graduation I decided that I would furthermore be referred to by my full name, Allison. Allie was so 2003, thank you. Also, please forgive the quality of the picture. 1.3 megapixels was a lot for back then, I swear.

(I now have more than that in.my.phone.)

While we’re here, let’s take a quick tour of the clichés in this picture, shall we?

Hello, pooka shell necklace and quasi-edgy band tee-shirt. What’s that? I can hardly hear anything over your yelling. Something about trying desperately to fit the west coast kid stereotype? Don’t worry, I think you succeeded.

Cliché evidence of my Christian college-y-ness: Bibles on the windowsill (2 stacked on top of a ‘quiet time journal’ within perfect reach of my bed, classic), my roommate’s guitar stand in the bottom right of the picture because every good Christian college kid knows at least 4 worship songs on the guitar (typically all with the same chord progression which is convenient) and many will sit on blankets in the quad and sing them on sunny, beautiful days causing passing Christian college students to swoon. ::siiiiiiiiigh::

See? Get’s ‘em every time.

The dorm room essential beanbag chair where DanO and I would eventually spend many an evening kissing holding hands while listening to watching DVDs of Arrested Development.

Moving on.

Along with a big girl name change, I upgraded two time zones and found myself plum in the middle of the Midwestern United States living on a beautiful 2,500 person campus (only about 500 more people than my high school). This was it! College, new friends, a big, glamorous city to explore and new favorite hangout spots to find.

I had arrived.

One of the best parts of the entire experience was finding a kindred spirit:

Roommate, with a capital R

Well hello, Roommate’s equally chunky shell necklace and screen printed tee-shirt! Oh, you’re from California?! For some reason I feel like I knew that already.

And yes, I changed into shorts in the above picture – they are just hiding behind the lamp I got from the obnoxiously colored dorm gear section of Target. I was headed to a very important intramural soccer practice… or I just wanted to show off my tan legs, I can’t really remember.

Hey look! I had ankles!

I miss those ankles.

(Also, please ammend the above clichés list to also include that college logo Nalgene bottle with a carabiner on the handle. Thank you.)

Roommate and I would spend the next 2 years of college living together and rearranging our modular furniture bi-weekly, hiding funny things in each others’ stuff, instant messaging from across the room, going on stealth operations to write on the campus sidewalks with chalk in the middle of the night, and even going on each others’ family vacations to Disneyland.

This was a really scary ride, I promise.

You’re just going to have to take my word for it.

“Boy, I’m glad I didn’t pee my pants” faces.

This girl was the best roommate anyone could wish for. So easy going, fabulously hillarious, and at the heart of it, has a deep love for those around her – even those pesky youth group kids she served(/serves). When her roommate went on a midnight walk with some boy she just met, Roommate wanted to make sure that this new relationship had the right intentions. “Just don’t kiss him yet, ok? It’s too soon.“

Sage advice.

To be continued…

Friday, May 9th:
morning:
-pick up fruit arrangement for Saturday’s party
afternoon:
-my parents arrive from Portland
-commencement rehearsal
-go pick up cake for Saturday’s party
night:
-dinner with my parents

Saturday, May 10th:
morning:
-get ready to have 20ish people over
afternoon:
-Dan’s family arrives from MN
-grad party with great friends and their families
-education department reception
-all school social
night:
-Dan’s brother gets here from college on the East coast
-dinner with Dan’s family

Sunday, May 11th:
morning:
-baccalaureate service bright and early
afternoon:
-graduate.
-take a lot of pictures with fellow graduates
-cry and say goodbyes
night:
-sit around and note the fact that we are college graduates

This should be fun!

The last couple weeks have been like that for me in a lot of ways. I’m sure that I’m moving at full speed, but when I look around, it’s like someone hit the lights on me and turned on the strobe, making everything I do appear unnaturally slow. Graduation couldn’t come soon enough. I am so over my general ed. classes (thanks Music 101, but I took IB Music Theory in high school, and I’m just not that into you). The walls of this little apartment get smaller every week (or maybe we just get more crap), and I want to live in something I own. The weather is so freaking schizophrenic; couldn’t it just be Spring already?!

This all may have to do with the fact that, as a kid, I hit my head really hard once and broke my ability to be patient – at least, that’s what I tell Dan. Ever since that accident, I’ve had this on and off desire to start sprinting in the middle of the long-distance races in my life. But you know what? Today I decided to not let my recent strobe-lit life get to me (or my broken patience gland). Where I am right now in life is good, in fact, it’s great! If I started sprinting now, I would miss my last 2 months here, living right next to some of the best friends I will ever have, seeing and interacting with people of vibrant faith, learning from wise professors and mentors. I would run right past the amazing things about this time of my life, and that would be a really big bummer come May 12th, when everything will change.

So crank that techno music DJ, and bring on the strobe light dancing.

I can honestly say that we tried to do “something different” and to avoid the chapeltizement formula the best we could, but doors were closed to us. It seemed as though we were pigeon-holed into having your typical “here’s our ministry. here’s how cool we and and the good things we do. here’s why you should join.” I actually heard the words “come to the OCO to find out more” at least 3 times, which is true – the OCO is where you can find information about these ministries we’re representing – but it all just felt so typical.

I feel like we let the campus down to an extent, and all I can say is that I’m sorry, and we tried.

Yet, WE SURVIVED! And we are one credit closer to graduating for it. We also got to be at the beautiful Honeyrock campus for a weekend, as well as hang out with and become better friends with some pretty cool people – even if we all got a little grumpy at times. Overall I am so glad to be home and sleeping in something I don’t have to zip up!