Our Expanding Clan

Our first family self portrait.

              
                      

Mama and Cy - First Impressions

Answered Prayers: Smith baby #2 (with picture)

Thanks to the many family and friends for the prayer support for Victoria, baby #2, Charlotte, and I. It was a completely different labor than the last one. It went really well. Victoria was a real trooper at the end when it finally was more substantive in the pain department. Needless to say, it was definitely a huge answer to Victoria's and your prayers and hopes for this labor and delivery.

Cy Ebenezer Silver Smith (yeah 2 middle names) was born at 1:57pm 5/22/11 weighing in at 8lbs and 8oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. Cy and mom are doing well.

Hope you enjoy the pic. I am off to sleep for a few hours.

Overdue - Oh, the joy!

My due date was Sunday. This past Sunday. Yes, for those who are counting, that was four days ago. For a week now we've had days here and there where we thought maybe...just maybe...this could be it.....then, once again everything returns to a standstill. You see, Charlotte was 11 days late, so in some ways this is familiar ground. Although, both Pete and I thought this baby might come early. Maybe it was wishful thinking or maybe we thought since I've just about run out of every possible maternity top option in my closet at this point, this baby for sure is big enough and would most definitely be ready to make his/her appearance a little early. But, here I am....still pregnant.

Yes, it is frustrating. Yes, I do wish I could hold this little one in my arms right now rather than in my belly. Yes, there are moments when I honestly believe I will remain pregnant forever. But, I do have to say that through it all the Lord has given me an overwhelming peace about it all. This being our second child, the pregnancy is so entirely different than the first. With Charlotte, all I could focus on was every moment of her growing and changing and developing inside of me and the anticipation of finally meeting her face to face. But, with this one, my days are so preoccupied with caring for Charlotte that often times I start to forget I'm even pregnant. Crazy thought considering I have to carefully navigate my way through most doorways so I don't get stuck, but the feeling is still there at times. Because of this, it has taken much longer for me to "bond" with this baby than it did with Charlotte when she was in the womb. One of my biggest fears was that that bonding would never take place; that the baby would even be born without any excitement or joyful anticipation like I experienced the first time. I had to work through these feelings with the Lord and over the past few weeks and He has given me such peace and renewed excitement for this little one. If this baby were born even two weeks early, my heart would still not have been in the right place, in the place where I longed for it to be when going into labor. Labor and delivery is hard enough when you have that excitement rising up inside and joyful anticipation at meeting your little one, but a million times harder to endure, I'm sure, when those feelings aren't present. So, yes, it is challenging waiting for the impending birth, especially when you see that due date come and go and continue to fade over the horizon. But, through this time of waiting, I'm learning to wait the way the Lord calls us to wait, and to remember the joy that comes when we are obedient to Him and His perfect timing for our lives. I'm reminded of one of my favorite verses in the Bible, Psalm 130:5-6,

 ⁵ I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,
   and in his word I put my hope.
⁶ I wait for the Lord
   more than watchmen wait for the morning,
   more than watchmen wait for the morning.

So, I will continue to wait with that same anticipation that's present when we put all our hope in the Lord, with the expectation of his glory being revealed. 

I'm so excited to meet this little one. Now present are tears of joyful anticipation and much excitement at the thought of holding this little one in my arms at last. I will continue to wait for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Eight more weeks - REALLY?

This has pretty much been the state of affairs lately. The head is cut off because I'm not quite sure I'm smiling in this picture. I think I have one every-day maternity shirt that still covers the entire belly. This is obviously not one of them, even though I thought it was one of my longer ones at the start of this pregnancy. My belly is measuring about two and a half weeks larger than my current week, but nothing the doctor is concerned about. It's just a change for me since with Charlotte I was always measuring about three weeks smaller than my current week. Maybe this one will actually come on time!

It's amazing to me how much more quickly this pregnancy has gone by. For the longest time there, I kept bumping into things (tables when sitting down for dinner, walls when turning corners, Peter, when trading places in the bathroom while brushing our teeth) because I didn't think my belly was big enough already to have become my own personal obstacle. That's how fast time has flown this time around. I don't even think I had a second trimester. But, with all that said, it's amazing to me how the Lord has still used each moment to prepare me for this next stage of our lives. He's shown me such growth and maturity in Charlotte these past couple months, which has greatly eased my mind about having a newborn and an 18-month old at the same time. He's given me great encouragement regarding my many fears of how on earth I'll manage now keeping two children alive, let alone being there to teach, lead, and love them by his grace. He's also given me the support and compassion of an understanding husband who does everything he can to show me daily how much he loves me. Not to mention his role as founder and president of the Victoria Maintenance Program, with daily hip and back rubs before bed. I don't know how my back would survive this pregnancy without him! There were definitely many freak-out moments at the start of this pregnancy with sobbing cries of "how am I going to do this?!?", but God's amazing grace has turned those moments into waves of peace, trusting he's always pulled me through, and he's not about to stop now. I am so grateful to be serving such a remarkable God! James 1:2-4 has been on my heart lately, and a great encouragement to me during this time.

I decided to leave you with a smiling top-half!

Our Little Love - 15 Months

It's hard to believe our little baby girl just turned 15 months old. Every day I see more of her babiness fading away and being replaced by a sweet little girl full of personality and spunk. There are so many new things she does every day and I've needed to record them for a while now, so I'll just go through a few off the top of my head now.

In the past three months she started walking. She took her first few steps around one year of age, just from one piece of furniture to the next, and most of the time I think without even realizing she was doing it. But, it was over Christmas break, when we were visiting Pete's family in Baltimore, that she really took off. She started walking from one room to the other without a second thought. A few weeks into January is when she started getting up on her own, unassisted from any furniture or nearby legs to pull up on, and after that happened I haven't been able to stop her. She wants to walk everywhere and will squirm out of my arms when I try to carry her. She loves walking up and down the stairs to our apartment, and uses the railing all on her own to help her up. It's a lot of fun to watch, and I have to admit it can be much easier on me at times when I have my arms full. She never seems to get tired either, which amazes me because she's got such little legs. She'll never stop to be picked up along the way because she's too tired. Come to think of it, I rarely see her too tired for much of anything.

I started teaching Charlotte simple sign language around six to eight months, and she uses it now quite regularly. Some of her signs include "more", "please", (often those two used in conjunction when wanting something sweet that either Peter or I have near by), "again" (used often when she wants me to pull her around the house in the laundry basket), "help" (usually when needing help taking lids off jars to explore what's inside), "all done", "milk", "eat", "dance", "hurt", "patient", and "wait" (the last two being the most important, but the last to understand, of course). She wants to communicate so badly lately that often she'll use a few signs at once to try to tell me something she doesn't have the word for. She talks quite a bit too. Most of it is baby babble, of course, but some of the words we can make out are "Mama", "Dada", "hat", "puppy", "dolly", she tries to say bath because she loves them so much and gets so excited when we tell her she gets to take one but it usually comes out "da!", "hi", "bye".

I mentioned that Charlotte loves baths. We'll tell her it's bath time and she runs down the hall way toward the bathroom, trying as best as she can to take off her shirt along the way. When we get her undressed, she's now understanding how to walk her dirty clothes back to her room and put them in her clothes hamper and to put her dirty diaper in the trash can before she gets into her bath. That's probably the best part of the day, seeing our naked little baby traipse back through the house to get to the bathroom after throwing away her dirty diaper. We'll give her lots of bubbles, which she likes to rub up and down her arms, and all her favorite bath toys. I think if we didn't cut her off at around twenty minutes, she'd stay in there all night long. We'll ask her if she's ready to get out, and she adamantly says "no!", turns her head away and gets herself very busy again playing in the bath. We'll drain out all the water and she's still sitting in the tub, playing with the toys, and making the most of the all-but-gone bubbles remaining in the tub.

Other than watching her naked little body run through the house before bath time, my other favorite part of the day is when her Daddy comes home from work. As soon as she hears his key turn in the lock, she gets this super excited look on her face, squeals, claps, and starts jumping up and down in my arms if I'm holding her. She LOVES her Daddy, and that fact right there just lights up my world. He adores her and it really shows in all the time and attention he gives to her. She knows Daddy's the one to go to for a good time of wrestling, tickling, flying through the air, or that extra bite of cookie. It's really great to see the two of them together and I'm so blessed to be married to a man who is such a fantastic father to his child.

With #2 on the way in a few short months, I try to get Charlotte ready for the change to her world. I know at 15 months, her understanding of this reality is very limited, but I still tell her daily how excited I am for her to be a big sister to her new little brother or sister. I tell her there's a baby in Mama's belly, and she'll lift up my shirt to "look" for it, then very shortly thereafter get distracted by my belly button. She loves to look at pictures of other babies. We have a few baby magazines on the shelf and she'll get them out and page through them for twenty minutes at a time some days, just looking at the baby pictures. She's also super social with other kids and always wants to be where they are, even if they're much bigger than her. I just know she's going to be a great big sister and will really enjoy having a little play mate to spend her days with.

Another really neat thing about Charlotte's personality is that she loves to share. Whatever toy she's playing with, she'll always bring it over to me and let me enjoy it as well. She has a favorite dolly and stuffed puppy she plays with most often, and she'll bring them to me and have me give them a kiss and cuddle and then she'll kiss and cuddle them in return. She also loves sharing her food. Just about every meal, she'll take a bite and then insist that you take the next bite. Then she'll look for her dolly and want to share the food with her as well, which I found is great if you're talking about sharing Cheerio's, but when it's spaghetti, it's a whole other story for Dolly. Dolly is presently in the washing machine with Shout sprayed on her face.

Meal time has become a fun time for us all and also a bit of a challenge at times. Charlotte has a true independent streak to her, which I'm sure is the same for most 15 month old children. She will eat about three fourths more food if you let her use a fork and/or spoon. She loves trying doing it all herself and I've had to force myself many times to really let go and allow her to get a little (or a lot) messy and just explore and enjoy herself. At times I think it's been more of a learning curve and growing time for me than it has for her. She's definitely taught me how to let go of many of my control tendencies. I thank the Lord for that!


I just really love our little girl. It amazes me how my heart can continue to grow each day and how amazed I can continue to be by another human being so young and so small. She is such a beautiful and delightful blessing in our lives and I am a better wife and woman because of her. I pray every day that the Lord would give me wisdom to know how to best raise her, how to best discipline her, and that I would be patient and long suffering with her in times of challenge. I continue that prayer two-fold for this next little bundle that will soon make his/her entrance into our lives. It is definitely the most challenging job I've ever had but the only one I could imagine for my life. I thank the Lord every day that I get to spend it the way I do, whether it ends in tears or laughter, I can't imagine doing anything else! I love you Charlotte, my sweet little love.

The Icepocalypse

I like to refer to the Dallas, TX "Ice Storm of 2011" as the ICEPOCALYPSE. Sounds more dramatic and sensational than even the TV crews can come up with. "It was thundericing the other night! The power was a flickerin', people was having accidents left and right, they almost cancelled the Superbowl, and we almost died or even worse!"

"In other news, Victoria Smith has razed ire for commandeering her nearly 15 month old daughter's pacifier. Mrs. Smith ordered the cease and desist from pacifier usage on account of cabin fever. 'There just was nothing else for me to do,' said the stranded at home mother. 'I'd like to see friends and get out of Dodge but it was just not worth it. Besides, the sliding glass door was frozen shut. So I had to find something to do. I looked around and there it was: my next "mission" was just staring at my face from my daughter's mouth. I just wanted to get a kiss from my daughter that didn't have a pacifier flavor to it anymore.'"

"There you have it folks. That's all for this news hour! From Dallas, TX I'm Pete Smith. Good Day!"