Tuesday was Esther's two month birthday! I think from this point on, I'll start forgetting how many weeks old she is, and just count by months instead (but in case you're wondering, she's 9 weeks old as of yesterday. This time 9 weeks ago, Dave and I were waking up in a fog after the craziest 58 hours of our lives to date).
We had a wonderful friend of a friend take these beautiful photos for us just 8 days after Esther was born. You can see Cassie's version of the shoot here (thanks Cassie!!). Because I'm a first time mom and this is my blog, I'm posting almost every picture that Cassie sent us. Buckle up.
These past two months have been challenging and full of learning, but wonderful and full of beautiful growth for me and Dave, and obviously, Esther. Her growth is physical and astounding in its speed, and our growth has been emotional and spiritual, and not quite as astounding in its speed as its depth.
Some of the parenting clichés we've always heard have held true, some have not. Most of the things we were afraid of or worried about have not happened, and there's been joy in ways different than I expected. Timelines we were assured about have been compressed and expanded in ways unique to our family. We have to fight daily against our selfishness, fear, and desire for control. We learn and grow more in love for each other, ourselves, and our daughter every day. Life is richer and deeper now with Esther.
How wonderful life is, now you're in the world.
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And here's the iPhone dump of the last few (9) weeks. I've started using Chatbooks to print inexpensive photos of each month of Esther's life. I'm pretty sure this won't happen for successive kids (sorry, successive kids), but again, FIRST TIME MOM DOING EVERYTHING IN EXCESS. Oh well. It's easy enough to do it from my phone, and I'm excited to have these little booklets sitting around on the coffee table. Month one is on it's way to our apartment now, and since Tuesday marked two months, I can order that one up too.
My mom came for 10 days after Esther was born to help out (SO SO NEEDED), then was home for less than two weeks, then came back with Dad and Jessie (who wants to be called J-Nasty instead of Auntie Jessie — nope). We asked our church if we could do a baby dedication the weekend my family was in town and they agreed to it, so it was really special to have both sides of the family there.
We're starting to see a lot more smiles from Esther, and I think she might be right on the verge of laughing. There is nothing sweeter than going to sit next to her, and a smile of recognition lighting up her face. She's a sweet little girl with a sweet little spirit.