Valentine conversation hearts!

I type with an exclamation point because i just ate a bag! They are my favorite non-chocolate candy - tasty, brightly colored and bonus, they have fabulous sayings. i always think i should buy some to tide me over between Valentine's Days, but then i tend to gorge on them in season and be sick of them until the next year.

The yellow and orange ones taste the best and the white ones are my least favorite. Why are there always so many pink ones?

The Necco brand is the best and only one to buy.

Some favorite sayings:

Fax me (sooo romantic AND current)

U R 10

I LU (my personal favorite - i think this is shorthand for "I am Lu")

Marry me (i used to wish that my future husband would propose to me using this, i mean when i was like 9 or 10)

Email (perhaps a hommage to this technology?)

Nice girl

Home sick

And (this is new to me, i guess to allow people to string together hearts)

Or (ditto)

It has been seven months and two weeks since Christopher, Scout and I loaded our remaining belongings into a too-small taxi, leaving only one seat in the car for both Christopher and I to sit in for the 45 minute drive to Borispyl Airport at 4:30 am.

After a month of visiting Christopher’s parents, possibly the happiest and most enthusiastic new grandparents EVER, and also seeing friends in Colorado, we landed in a suburb 45 minutes outside Atlanta “New Capital of the South” Georgia. The lure was a sweet job for Christopher, as well as his grandparent’s house and car waiting for us.

I’ve been humbled by how well we’ve been taken care of by providence, by our families and how relatively smooth the transition has been. I mean, we had three HUGE life events in a short period of time. There’s a scale of what such change means for one’s stress level and having a child, moving countries and changing jobs are high up there.

I’ve felt shocked by how difficult this new life can be at times, even given all our advantages and blessings. I’ve felt thrilled at how true all of the good clichés about having a baby are. The joy, the wonder, feeling privileged to participate in such a mundane miracle.

I still can’t believe sometimes I have a baby, even at the same time that I sometimes can’t believe my little baby is nine months old, and is already such a big boy. He can sit up and is able to sort of drag/inchworm his way around a room, can turn book pages, understands several words and loves, loves, loves his mommy and daddy.

I promised myself I’d write more frequently and this is a beginning. Scout is now laughing over the baby monitor, his newest sound that isn’t always a real laugh but is delightful nonetheless.

More specific subject will be covered in future posts.

I’ll end today’s missive with the current offering on the Toonigh Baptist Church sign (I really love Southern church billboards and the folk-wisdom they offer in their messages):

If someone is getting your goat, talk to the shepherd.