Pics?

I have to admit it has been a bit difficult to get pictures posted to the blog for one reason only, the blurry little girl running across the screen. Lexi is 14 months old and on the move. She doesn't stop. Ever. In the most recent photos of her, she looks like she is bothered by the photographer. Is she practicing this look for the paparazzi?

Lexi is a brilliant child. She knows the letter A. She knows where most of her body parts are, but she is still partial to her belly. She can point out the light, ceiling, and (almost) floor. You can see the concentration in her eyes when she is committing something to memory. She loves the challenge. She loves music, and loves to dance. Her vocabulary is expanding every day. Her latest- 'here, do this' usually done to request something we've done before with one of her toys. Lexi also loves to copy her mommy and daddy. She watches daddy pick up Benji and thinks great idea. Not so great in Benji's opinion. She watches mommy throw things in the trash, so now we have to look through the trash every chance we get for things that shouldn't be there. We are loving this little girl more and more every day!

Life

It's been a difficult few weeks for us. Especially for me. I was devastatingly affected by a quick story I read online. A lady days away from the due date for her first child was killed in a car accident, then the baby was delivered, and she lived a scant 3 days. Through the first news of the pregnancy, through today, the husband has been blogging. I read a lot of the blog about the anticipation of the baby, through him singing his sweet angel into Heaven, and I ran around the house ugly crying for days. My head and my heart couldn't get around 1) this poor man living through this tragedy, and 2) this man witnessing God's grace and mercy through the entire tragedy. I would imagine that in the face of tragedy, some (maybe myself) would be angry at God. To have such strong faith while having your life torn apart is amazing to me. It really got me thinking about life. We all die, a fact that I have a hard time accepting. After days of being angry, sad, hurt, emotional, etc, I finally had an enlightened moment where I realized life is about love. Yes, we live, we die, but the more we love, the more we live.

Jon has banned me from reading this person's blog any further because it's just too hard for me to get into his head, but I pray for this man daily. I think the emotions come fast and hard from being a mom. I think mommyhood has changed me chemically. It's a love that I can't even put into words. So I think the idea of me, or anyone else, losing their child is unfathomably painful.

The emotions I have felt as a result of this, and other things going on in my life right now, brought back the memory of my favorite poem, by Marilyn Monroe.

Life,
I am both of your directions.
Existing more with the cold frost.
Strong as a cobweb in the wind.
Hanging downward the most,
somehow remaining.

Those beaded rays have the colors I've seen in paintings.
Ah life, they have cheated you.
Thinner than a cobweb's thread,
sheerer than any,
but it did attach itself,
and held fast in strong winds,
and sindged by hell's leaping hot fires.

Life, of which at singular times I am both of your directions,
somehow I remain, hanging downward the most,
as both of your directions pull me.