Last Monday, Rich and I had a long overdue date night with Ben and Shanika, set to be wed this August! We are so excited for them, and it’s been a trip to watch their relationship from the beginning. They are so cute together, and we know they will have so much happiness and make such an impact together!
We started off with dinner and then considered playing a game…except that the talking never stopped! We just chatted and caught up until…well, late.
Okay, we also got distracted with Rich’s photobooth…it yielded some truly scary results…
Then on Friday night we had Scott and Allie over. It was our first official time hanging out with them and we had a blast! We have so much in common and just love these two. We go to church with them and have chatted from time to time, but hadn’t gotten a date night on the calendar! It was awesome to finally get together after all of the “we-should-get-together-soon’s”!!!
We had dinner and then moved into the living room for more talking and some dessert…and then some photo fun!
And more photobooth…
Then on Saturday, we had the privilege of attending Rob and Jeminah’s wedding! Here is the lovely bride with her sisters…
And here we are…the little family of three…
All in all, it has been a great week and we’ve loved the fellowship with friends. Alana is posing quite the challenge with her fluctuating nap schedule. My days of late have been such a guessing game and it’s left me tired and frustrated. As I sit here and type, she is in her crib screaming her head off, making me feel like the worst mom ever. The girl needs to sleep, but man, she fights it. She sleeps well at night, so we have that part down! Ten hours each night, in fact. It’s our daytime routine that has undergone change and leaves me bewildered!
Rich and I have had incessant conversations lately about doing the harder thing in the short-term to yield benefits in the long-run. This includes letting her cry to sleep so that she learns to self-soothe (rather than relying on us to get her into a state of slumber) and beginning to wean her from the paci. We just really want to create an environment in which we can leave her with friends and go on a date, or leave her in the nursery without problems. Wow. Pray for us!
This mothering thing is less intuitive than I expected it to be. All that comes naturally to me is to love my little one and shower her with hugs and kisses. But other than that, I second guess myself daily and often don’t know what she needs!
What I do know is that we will be okay! We will learn and grow and we will be flexible. We will do our best, and trust that God will take care of Alana better than we ever could. We pray that in this — and in all of the future challenges that we will inevitably face — that we are faithful and that we teach Alana to see and savor the greatness of our God!
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