Saturday, October 23, 2010

Jadon's Room Makeover

So, Jadon has been sleeping in his room (mostly!) for about a month now, but I just haven't gotten around to taking pictures of it. I think it's pretty cute, but of course, there are always things to do/fix/rearrange...(for example, I don't love how the floating wall shelves are arranged, but oh well...). So today, Jim hung out with the kiddo (who is currently going through a phase where he isn't a big fan of long naps--we're talking 20-30 minutes 2 to 3 times a day!...And he doesn't sleep through the night, yet, either...Ay ay ay, we're tired!) while I finally captured the "nursery" on camera.

Oh, important to note, all the furniture except the crib was pre-existing, I just stained it with this really great Minwax Polyshades--you don't have to sand the old finish off. The changer/dresser were Jim's childhood furniture (identical to mine, ironically!), and the shelves were old, cheapo, mismatched units I used in my classroom, but obviously don't need there anymore. I trimmed one down, adjusted the shelf levels to match, added a scrap of molding to the top of the smaller one, and stained the fake wood laminate, and shockingly they turned out pretty nice! Yay!

So, here it is, before and after:

















Thursday, October 14, 2010

Trust

Jadon is now 4 months old. Time is flying and he is growing like a weed (against my wishes!). One of the ways I can tell is that he has started hanging out of his bath tub with the sling. It seems like just the other day we brought him home and I was petrified of giving him a bath because he was so tiny it seemed he would just slip right into the water. Now, he is barely getting wet.

So, I finally took off the sling. But I wasn't really thinking. Because Jim wasn't home. What if the bathtub was now too deep, and he slipped?

But Jadon was already undressed, and he really needed a soak...so I gingerly dipped his feet into the water. He jerked back and looked at me. Dang it. The water was a little warmer than usual. I was not doing so well, so far!

I kept lowering him, hoping he wouldn't start crying, and he complied. Before I knew it, his cute little bum was resting on the little butt-bump on the bottom of the tub, and he looked up at me. Oh that look. His big brown eyes showed uncertainty at his surroundings, but complete and utter trust that I would not let him down. It was a surreal moment, and oh-so-precious.

Such unwavering trust is somewhat overwhelming. It reminded me of my first year of teaching (and many times since) when I would stand in front of a classroom full of eyes staring at me and writing down my words, believing that I knew what I was talking about. (ha!) What a responsibility. And what a great reminder of how I'd like to be before God: in spite of uncertain circumstances, being fully confident that He loves me and will take care of me (and unlike myself, God is all powerful, and really cannot mess up!).