Holy Cow

Jacob is 6 months old.... how did that happen? I would swear that, just yesterday, I was bemoaning the fact that I was going to be pregnant for the rest of my life. And I'm quite certain that last night the child was the little bitty new born you will see in the picture below.

::sigh::

My baby boy is growing. Enjoy some favorite pictures of mine from the first 6 months of the Boy's life. I can't wait to share the next with you! Maybe, one day, one of these pictures will have a little boy with hair! :-)

July

August

September

October

November

December

January

An Article of Heartbreak

So, I was reading the article on parentdish.com. A mother in the United Kingdom wrote an article talking about her relationship with her eldest daughter… or, I should say, the lack their of. You see, she (the mother) says she doesn’t love her 11 year old daughter. She cares for the child, but she doesn’t love her. However, she adores her 2 year old little girl by her current partner.

I don’t know, I can’t imagine not loving my child… or loving one child & not the other. Of course, I only have one child… but still. It seems like such a foreign concept to my heart.

And I can only imagine what it’s doing to the heart of that little girl. I know that there are probably many (unfortunately) children who grow up feeling or thinking they aren’t loved… but to know it so intrinsically… my God. How terrible. How damaging. How heartbreaking. And then to have your mother write and spread this story for all to read...

a definition

epiphany: a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience

Silly Boy

Naptime for Mama & Jacob

Kinda Crazy

The recent flutter of internet activity around the return of French Justice Minister Rachida Dati to work 5 days after giving birth to her daughter via c-section tweaked my interest. Honestly, what interested me was the whole c-section thing since my son was born via the same method. My own experience was wonderful. A week after my child was born, I had lost a considerable amount of my baby weight & felt really great. So, I was interested in seeing how well another woman recovered from a rather traumatic and invasive surgery.

However, what quickly caught my eye was the comments that were tacked on to the end of the story.

There seemed to be 3 camps:

Camp #1 sounded out, "She’s a horrible, evil, selfish excuse for a mother and her daughter will need therapy for the rest of her life to make up for her childhood. And anyone who wouldn’t give up their career for their child obviously doesn’t love their little angel and is a terrible, no good person."

The 2nd camp replied, "You are so judgmental, I went back to work very soon after the birth of my child and my little darling is well-rounded and balanced. You are a narrow minded shrew who has nothing in their life but day time TV and passing judgement as a hobby!"

Oh, my golly heavens….

The absolute venom with which (unfortunately, mostly) women struck back and forth across the issue shocked the socks off of me. It was insane! I couldn’t stop reading. These women started off attacking a woman they didn’t know & (truly) knew nothing about & they it escalated to viscous mud slinging back and forth between one another.

I was ashamed that members of my gender could and would seem to have no problem in behaving to cruelty. The words that were exchanged were truly horrific. They attacked one another, their spouses, their children; nothing was off limits.

Lest you think that all the people who posted were heartless, there was one final group of people.
This camp tried to reason with all, "You know what, we don’t know what’s going on in her life. She’s a single mom, let’s not be quick to judge here."

I have to say, I’m that final camp & let me add; Let’s remember that no one falls into a simple set of labels & that most people are trying their best. Let us also remember that we can disagree with others without being disagreeable & completely horrid to one another. It is possible to dialog with others without insisting that they agree with and conform to every single thing we agree with.

New Barna Poll

A new Barna Group poll revealled the following.

50% of Americans who call themselves Christians do not believe Satan exits. 1 in 3 believe that Jesus sinned while on earth.

Another 40 percent say they do not have a responsibility to share their Christian faith with others, and 25 percent "dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches."

A Lack There Of....

It will come as no surprise to any faithful reader of this blog that I am nearly beside myself with excitement over the continuation of Battlestar Galactica tomorrow night. One would simply need to take a gander at the sidebar for evidence to back up that claim. Because, oh my gravy, I'm excited for tomorrow night! I adore this show. It is the best, absolute best, sci-fi show ever to grace the small screen & I would go even farther to say that it is one of the Top 10 Dramas ever on tv. It's that fracking good.

However, as I revel in the greatness that is BSG I am confronted with the inexplicable truth that most of the rest of what passes on "prime time" television is, well, sub-prime. There is so little on tv that is even remotely compelling... I rarely watch the prime time channels any longer unless it's the news or a sports game.

And don't even get me started on "reality game shows." Ugh. I count it as pride that I don't watch American Idol or Survivor or Big Brother or The Bachelor or Mama's Boy or Your Mama or whatever new I Have No Real Talent But I Have an Unhealthy Need to Be Recognized & Noticed So I Will Make an Absolute Idiot out of Myself show that comes around the bend next.

Then there are the mindless teeny-bopper shows that are truly mind-numbing. Actually, they cause the unsuspecting, intelligent viewer who happens to stumble upon them to reach blindly for a spork with which to perform a lobotomy on their self. Anything to end the pain. Eeegads!

And MTV is now and forever dead to me.... as in, going fishing with Fredo, dead to me. Seriously, why don't they just go ahead and change the name?? Cause 'MTV' it ain't. Just change it to "moronic" and get it over with.

And here's something to ponder, why is there wrestling on the sci-fi channel? What in the name of George Lucas, Gene Roddenberry, Han Solo and Captain Picard does wrestling have to do with science fiction?!?!?!?!

::le sigh::

We turn to television as an escape from the every day grind, but there's so little that's truly worthy of our time. That's sad. But, what's even sadder is that we settle for this nonsense & call it entertainment.

Someone Got a Late Christmas Present...

... an exersaucer & he loves it. His current favorite activity is making it "sing" and bouncing as hard as he can in it..... all the while making his new favorite sound- growling. I would say that it's a hit. It ceraintly beats face planting into the sofa cushains because we can't quite sit up by ourselves yet.

My beloved Grandmother Winnie turned 81 on Christmas Eve.... it was a pure joy to celebrate her birthday with all of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sister, brother-in-law, and grandnephew!

More Holiday Pictures

Navel Gazing

So, I've been thinking a lot about paths lately. The various paths we take in life. How they lead us away from some people... towards others. How the choices we make change the path we're on... sometimes without us even realizing it &, more often than not, before we've quite noticed.

I suppose this is a concept that all people grapple with from time to time.... how many songs and poems have prognosticated on this very topic?

Oddly enough, it's a topic that's amazingly profound... and terribly simplistic at the same time.

Maybe that's why it's the subject of so much thought?...

And then, there's the journey itself. And that churns up a whole new set of thoughts and feelings. Life is never set. It's always moving; we're always moving. That much is certain. And, we must be willing to move with it. Being left behind is never a fun prospect, but as I've moved through my life, I've come to believe that it's not really possible. Life has a way of yanking you along, whether you want to go or not.

I think most of our troubles arise when we hold on to people, places and times when their place in our lives are long past. When we cling to those old treasures. It's that, that's the hardest thing to do, I believe. To let go, willingly... even, happily.... or perhaps merely with acceptance.

Anyway, nothing too profound or new in the spectrum of ideas. Just something that's been zipping around my head as of late.

Jacob's First Visit from Santa

North Park Mall & Santa Pictures

And He Sleeps.....

A Happy Boy

Here's a smiley little face!

Just clowning around on the couch!

Tornado, Tech Week, Openings, & New Pics

Well, we've had a minor victory here in the V household the past day or three. Jacob has napped with minimal fussing. WHOOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The boy HATES to nap during the day. HATES, HATES, HATES it. He just has too much to do (he thinks) to be bothered with sleeping during the day. His mama disagrees... very much so. Because the boy is a dragon boy come 5pm if he hasn't napped. So, we've been engaged in a full on, full scaled nap war.

I don't want to get too excited and jinks it, but I'll take what I can get... Especially since the child has been sleeping blissfully through the night since he was 7 weeks old.

Last night was tons of fun here in Plano (insert all kinds of sarcasm here). I got home from tech week rehearsal about 11pm, just in time to get a 1) in trouble for being late and not calling & 2) a phone call from my mother to tell me to turn on the news because there is some inclement weather lurking about. Lovely. As it turns out, there was rotations in the thunderstorms..... as in, tornado making rotations..... in December?????? Really?????

Then the sirens went off....

Apparently, not kidding.

(Though I do have to say that the city of Plano needs to work on the timing of when the frickin' sirens go off. Do those stupid things EVER go off, I don't know, BEFORE the rotations blows over your house?????????????? Michael and I heard it.)

So, we got to grab the boy and the cat and sit in the hall bathroom for a short while.... it's like Pavlov's dog.... the sirens to anyone who has grown up with the threat of tornadoes. The sirens go and then you go.

Anywhoo..... going to be writing that down in Jacob's baby book.

On the theatre front, we're in tech week. We open on Friday. Those of you looking for a great, family friendly, kid friendly Christmas show come out the to Plano and see Word of Mouth's production of The Miraculous Journey of Nicholas. Like I said, we open this Friday and run Friday night, Sat night and a Sunday matinee & then do the whole thing over again the following weekend.

Enjoy some new pics of The Boy!

Another Opening, Another Show...

Well, another show has come to an end. Annie Oakley was great fun & it was terribly sad to see it end. We had a BLAST!

And now, I'm on to the next show- I'm stage managing the next WOMP production, a Christmas show this time. All the performers are kids (in age, not just in attitude like the previous show!) & they are a group of talented kiddos!

Here are a few pics from the show!

Baby Dedication

On November 9th, we had J's baby dedication at our church!