7 Quick Takes (Vol. 1)

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This is my first go at a 7 Quick Takes post. I've been reading other people's for so long I kind of feel like an internet stalker for not doing my own. Thus, taking the plunge!

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Walter got his second cold ever. The first cold he got was so easy -- he lapped up his medicine, slept a little more than usual, and was generally like normal except congested. This one, however... yikes. After five days it seemed to clear up only to return with a vengeance later that day and turn into an ear infection. He spent most of Wednesday sleeping on me, looking incredibly sad, and crying. Normally I'm pretty relaxed about baby stuff and find the prevailing societal anxious attitude towards babies beyond frustrating, but I'm glad that I went with my gut on Wednesday and took him in to the doctor. I'm also really glad that my mum didn't push me to take him, even tho' she thought taking him was the right thing to do. She let me make the decision on my own after we talked through how he was doing and how far on the scale of abnormal his behavior was. When taking an extended vacation with family these small courtesies make all the difference! Anyway, now I have a much happier baby who is clearly on the mend, and that means that I'm much happier too. As David says, Walter's smiles hold the moon in place so it's nice to have them back!

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On the night that Walter was really sick he kept me up for most of the night, as he was after my attention every 30-60 minutes and refused to be separated from me. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation taking over my brain, but I couldn't help seeing many parallels between his relation to me and my relation to God. As he bugged me, constantly, for 12 hours, I couldn't help but see the way I bug God whenever something in my life is wrong. Like Walter, I can't always express what it is that is upsetting me. Like Walter, I will keep trying to attract God's attention through crying, complaining, and general unhappiness. Like Walter, I often refuse to be satisfied with anything other than exactly what I want delivered exactly the way I want it, even if the other option would do me a world of good if I'd only accept it. For me this was a real lesson in patience. I am not a very patient person, and I always worried that this was drastically affect my relationship with my kid(s). When I realised that Walter's constant harassing of me was no different (and probably a lot better) than my constant harassing of God when things in my life don't feel well, I also had a glimpse into the infinite patience & love of God, who puts up with my griping so much better than I put up with Walter's :) Spiritually I'm not always that much different from a 6-month-old. How's that for a lesson in humility?

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It looks like we're heading back to England for the time being, which I'm starting to get excited about, at least in the moments when I can let go of all the stress and uncertainty that have clouded my life for the past year-and-a-bit. I'm happy that we've missed the English winter and that we'll be back for what will hopefully be a lovely spring:

Blossoms at Wimpole Estate last May

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Of course the main downside right now to heading back to Blighty is that I have to do yet another visa application, this time for Walter. Do you have any idea how much I loathe doing applications? Since 2009 I have done either a passport or visa application every year. They are a particular problem for me because I am of a suspicious nature that likes to read more into the questions than is probably there, and who constantly second guesses what I've put down. In other words, I'm overly meticulous and perhaps pedantic. It's why I make such a good Fraud Analyst. Anyway, every time I complete an application I think to myself, "good, it will get easier next time" but it never does. Usually when I freak out about it, David reminds me that people the world over (or "people much less smart than you") manage to apply and get visas, but this time around it has led me to think "how would someone not as smart as me interpret this? Am I interpreting this correctly?"... So I live in a hell of my own making for the three weeks or so that it takes to complete the process. Pray for me :)

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For Christmas my mother-in-law gave me the book Bread & Wine: Readings for Lent & Easter. While I haven't always managed to get to each day's reading (at least my backlog isn't quite as large on my backlog of daily catechism readings) I've been really enjoying working through it as part of my devotions most evenings. Usually I enter Lent with really good intentions and then find out that I'm halfway through Holy Week and haven't managed to spend any time to use Lent as an opportunity to grow in faith. This book is at least giving me a chance for reflection every night and the readings have been a good way to review my day.

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And, since a 6-month-old is giving me a little more reading time than a 6-week-old, I've brought out my copy of Lord of the Rings and am reading through that in my spare moments. I love it. I love it so much that I can't believe that I found it a boring chore to read the first time in picked it up, back in 2002. The days have been predominantly grey out on the west coast, so it's been nice to escape into the world of literature when I can't escape outdoors.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!