I’ve sat down to write this post about 20 times. Each time, before I can finish, I have yet another occurrence to stop, ponder and start again. I’m quickly coming to the point of calling it overwhelmed in the best of ways.
Natalie and I have our little Maddie coming soon, and there’s apparently a lot that needs to go into getting ready for a human life. Tiny little details, things I’d think of and things I wouldn’t. They stack up faster than I could possibly take care of them.
My bike needs fixed, because I don’t want to be dealing with motorcycles with issues with a newborn around. I want to focus on my kid.
My AC is out, and I’ve got a constantly overheating wife who can’t sleep and I don’t know the first thing about AC.
Natalie is nesting like crazy and ordering things that need assembled faster than I can assemble them. They aren’t needs by any stretch, but she wants more places to store things, because apparently little babies still have things they eat or store just like adults.
My living room is dark, we need a new light because I don’t want my baby growing up depressed. Insert “dark humour” joke here as well. 🙂
We’ve got our friend/renter moving out right before the kid shows up, and I don’t have much time to move all the furniture into Maddie’s room. Everyone says it doesn’t matter, that she’ll be in ours for a bit, but I don’t wanna be the deadbeat dad with just an empty room for a child.
My yard looks like I dump, and I had so many things I wanted to do to it before Maddie showed up. But I don’t have the time, nor skill.
Maddie needs clothes and diapers and toys and whatever else it is you need when you’ve got a human life to guardian.
OR
I should say, those were all former needs. Because constantly, at every turn, I am being taken care of, helped, far beyond anything I could possibly be worthy of or imagine. We’ve had friends showering Natalie and I with kid supplies, doing kind things to keep us rolling, make the yard nice, clothe the little one, keep the house cool, food stored, and infinitely more than I can even keep track of. Today my bride tells me that she had to stop writing thank you cards after hours of writing because her hand hurts too much, and she’s not even half way done. I can’t fathom that.
I’ve always viewed baby showers as some sort of odd-trade. You come to this party, and bring a gift. Like birthday parties growing up, if you’re a sociopath like me. Seems like a barter. I provide fun, you provide gifts. But then my wife has people jumping to throw parties, and it’s all people we just love so much, eager to come- so many thoughtful, hand made gifts for our little one that it’ll be hard for us to even explain to our kid that yes, we also love you too. But all this hand made stuff- all your earliest toys and blankets- those were made by others who loved you before they even met you. On top of that, people who couldn’t even make the party, showing up with gifts and kind words abundant! People we don’t even get to interact with a ton, but offering things I’d never even thought so that Natalie could sleep on a waist high bed at summer camp with our students… Who does that? Just buys, gifts, loans, serves people to show love?
I’ve always known my life is hallmarked by all the things I got I didn’t deserve, and the things I didn’t get that I had coming to me where I’m thankful it turned out that way. But now, we’ve got friends telling us to send us a list, I’ll buy whatever didn’t come on your registry. We’ve got friends coming out of the woodwork to do things we could never have asked, never expect, and man- how do I use the same words now as on the so-little things- “thank you?” It just rings so weak, so hollow. I’ve resorted to constant refrains of “seriously… thanks. Like really, thank you”
God, thanks for all you’ve done in using others to provide for us. But so much more than the provision, thanks for the reflection this causes in Natalie and I of just how incredibly loved and cared for that we are. We are overwhelmed by the caliber and kindness of those we are blessed to call friends, and would we reflect even one iota of this to those we love, in letting them know their immeasurable worth.
I keep trying to write a list at the end here of all the people and all the ways we’ve been shown love, but it just goes on and on and is being added to minute by minute. So for my own ability to recall later- everyone. It was seriously just everyone I knew who had any connection with my life, they were all doing kind things and saying kind things in this season. Just everyone.