RootsRain

Emily and I have always had a hard time falling asleep. Okay, actually, it’s just me. I keep her up by my incessant talking. I can’t help it. When the lights go out, my mind thinks I’m in the home stretch and gives it everything it’s got.

Of course, since we’re both tired, our conversations often turn bizarre. For instance, there’s the evening we spent happily insulting each other with fruit:

Jeff: You’re like a pineapple. There’s something sweet inside, but you have to hack it out with a machete.

Emily: Well, you’re like a cluster of grapes. You’re okay as you are, but you’d be better squeezed and sealed in a cask for 100 years.

Jeff: Ha! Well, you’re like an orange. Once you peel away the hard outer layer, there’s a lot of flakiness underneath.

Emily: Oooo… well, you’ve got layers, too, buster. A lot of them. Like an onion. And they all stink.

Of course, Emily’s the queen of half-asleep, back-handed compliments. On one occasion, she’d had a really bad day and hadn’t been terribly nice to me:

Emily: I don’t get it, Jeff. Why don’t you just kill yourself? Why don’t you just crawl under the bed and die?

Jeff: …ummm…

Yet another backhanded gem after several days of frustration with life:

Emily: I know why I’m always depressed. It’s because I’m a genius. Smart people are always more depressed than stupid people…

…but it’s nice that you’re always so happy.

Jeff: …ummm…

And then there’s the totally loopy tradeoffs that make me think we could be brilliant if only we would act more stupid…

Jeff: I was digging a trenchcoat…

Emily: but it made me sweater…

Jeff: so I sat on a bench in the parka…

Emily: but I started to pants…

Jeff: so I hopped in my cardigan…

Emily: but a cop said pull overalls…

Jeff: so I drove slow as a turtleneck…

Emily: At home I popped the hoodie…

Jeff: but the gears were full of sandals…

Emily: so I kicked the tire and stubbed my toga.

My favorite little boy.

And last but not least, I dare you to not laugh while watching this…

Here it is. Now everyone can see Benjamin’s infectious laughter.

Ashley is a 13-year-old girl in our church that Emily has been teaching guitar to for over a year. We’ve been praying for Ashley over the past four months, ever since she and her family first found out she had a very rare and aggressive form of cancer.

Ashley is going to see Christ today. She woke up this morning seeing hospital workers, tubes, monitors, and needles. Soon she’ll see the face of the One who made the universe.

Praise God that He is good, He is wise, He is all-powerful, and He’s prepared a place for Ashley. But pray for the family.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this special yummy-wummy update featuring my favorite little boy.

I also have extra scrumptious videos to post. This one was taken before Thanksgiving and shows Benjamin’s early love of oral communication.

This one’s of Benjamin the night he learned to roll over.

I’d just like to post something sweet and precious and scrumptious and yummy and fa-la-la-la-la la la la la. Emily took this picture when Benjamin was in a smiley mood. He looks like he’s modeling a clothing line for Russian babies… Russia’s answer to Baby Björn, no doubt… Baby Babushka.

Emily gives a music lesson to her youngest student to date:

Benjamin was pretty fussy before the music started, but as soon as Emily had begun playing a Bach piece, he calmed right down and watched her play. He hardly moved and didn’t make any noise unless she stopped playing. In this video, Emily’s singing “Pretty Saro,” an Appalachian folk song.

I was curious to see if Benjamin loved or hated the guitar since, when he was in the womb, he became really active every time Emily played. It appears he likes it. It remains to be seen whether he will only be a music lover (like me) or also a musician (like Emily).

At 8:19 this morning, Benjamin Thomas Gray entered the larger world outside Emily and we got our first look at him. Here are my three thousand words about him:

Benjamin weighed in at 7 pounds, 11½ ounces, and is 21 inches long. And according to Emily, he looks just like me. He certainly eats like me—that much is obvious already.

Mom called me “pops” this morning, but I’d like it to be officially known that she’s now a granny. I guess babies always make someone, somewhere feel old.

I think the labor made Emily feel old. Benjamin was 16 days late and then Emily was in active labor for 33 hours with no intervention, no drugs, no epidural… “Certified 100% Organic” is how grocery stores would put it. I’m quite proud of her. She just sat there for hours with her eyes closed, breathing hard occasionally, but making almost no expression… like some yogi in deep meditation. The doc & midwife had 2 other deliveries at the Birthing Center last night (first time they’ve ever had 3 deliveries happening at the same time) and they didn’t need to spend very much time with Emily because “that girl’s in control of her labor.” Way to go, Emily!

I was reminded again this morning of the verse “the whole creation has been groaning in the pains of childbirth.” It’s hard to imagine, when you’re in hour 28 of active labor and seeing no end in sight, that the result of all this pain and waiting—the interminable waiting without any rest—the result… is a child. A beautiful, delightful little promise of fresh life and curious joy. It seems backward—like a wait so horrible, so gnawing, so traumatic and painful should come just before… total destruction. But that’s not the way the universe runs, apparently. That’s not the point God made pain to raise. Pain points to renewal far more wonderful than the pain was terrible. Childbirth teaches it, the whole creation teaches it—from the flower that grows from the decay of last year’s leaves to a supernova collapsing on itself to form a black hole, powering the movement of an entire galaxy. The cross, especially, teaches it. As long as God is involved, pain is a signpost for growth, for change, and for hope. “The shadow proves the sunshine.”

Of course, that’s no reason not to love the fact that “labor” can now be used in the past tense at our house. Now we must learn other words and phrases like “spit up” and “it’s your turn, buster” or “Benjamin, leave Daddy’s beard where you found it.”

Last week Em had her third ultrasound checkup and after a lot of chasing our little bugger around Emily’s stomach, the technician was able to get a clear shot of him. Yes, I can finally say “him.” That sure beats all the gender-neutral verbal gymnastics I’ve been going through when trying to talk about him.

I wanted to include the ultrasound image where we made out that he’s a boy, but I just didn’t think it would be proper given that it wasn’t in color.

But I can include an image of the other little bugger we were able to get last week. This one’s also been several months in the making. Turner held a lottery for 75 slots to buy any brand new VW at unheard of discounts (basically, at-cost direct from the factory). I put my name in back in November and I was selected so we ordered a 2007 Beetle in December and after a little hecho en Mexico action, it was delivered last week. It’ll be Emily’s car since she’s had to put up so long with not having one. And because Gecko Green was her choice.

Well, on a scare of an ectopic pregnancy, Emily went and got an ultrasound today. It turns out that everything is fine, as Em explains on her blog. But the ultrasound technician was very pleasantly surprised to find she’d actually gotten a picture of a six week old baby. That’s apparently very difficult to do. The baby is currently about the size of a cooked piece of rice, so we’ve taken to calling it our “Rice Baby.” Don’t hurt yourself straining to see him in the scan (look for the little arrow).

Oh. And the “Hi Mom!” at the bottom was apparently what little Rice Baby said. At that size, though, Rice Baby has a very high-pitched voice that’s impossible to hear with human ears. (Why do you think they call it an ultrasound?) Emily and I are just very thankful that our baby speaks english.