There are a lot of changes that came with having a baby, and being a parent includes many decisions and requires a lot of intention and attention.  But I feel like I have settled into something of a pattern with the daily basis decisions.  It hasn’t taken long to sort of get lazy about being intentional.

Similarly with this whole process of getting to South Africa.  There are a lot of decisions to make and plans to follow through on with the whole moving and visa application process.  But I have gotten lazy about being intentional with my days to make sure I do things that have significance.

I would probably be thinking about this thing with the coming of a new year anyway, but as we are, hopefully, fairly close to actually moving, I have been thinking about it again.  In some ways this move will bring with it an opportunity to start life up again.  In a new way, with new plans, new patterns and habits, new intentions.

What will we do with our free time? What kinds of food will we eat? What will we spend our money on?What uses do we care about and want to be involved in? How can we be good parents? What can I do to make Mara’s life full? How can I make my life into the life that I want?

So many possibilities. And for the moment all those possibilites are sounds exciting to me.  I’m sure once we are in South Africa, and everything is new and unfamiliar I will long for these days when things are easy, habitual, and lazy.  But right now I am looking forward to the chance to start over in many ways.

Our hope at this point is that we will be leaving the country by the end of November or early December. It still feels a little absurd to me that this could be the case.  Malcolm and I were talking the other day and realized that we both still think it is the end of August.  We are going to leave by the end of August, and since we haven’t left yet, it must still be before the end of August.  I don’t think I’ll believe what month it is until it starts to get really cold and dark.  Maybe then I’ll believe we have long ago passed August.  This waiting game is doing strange things to my sense of time.

Days pass, and I do fun or interesting things mostly with my sister and her kids, and I feel shocked when another week has gone by. I stopped keeping real track of where we are in the week, and just get through the tasks for each day which mainly involve taking care of Mara.  I feel strangely disengaged from life.  I can’t really believe that Mara is nearly 3 months old.  She, like August, was only supposed to be a newborn when we moved.  But as she smiles, and coos, and tries to sit up, I know that I must be wrong about her newborn age.

Just to put it out there world, I am ready to go now.  I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave at the beginning of August, but now we have waited long enough, and I am ready for the end of August to come.

Mara joined our family in person almost 6 weeks ago, and life is starting to settle into a routine.  The first few weeks after she was born were some of the hardest of my life.  They were full of such new challenges and responsibilities that I wasn’t expecting.  How was I supposed to take care of this new life? How was I supposed to make sure she was getting enough food? How was I supposed to sleep? How was I supposed to be sure that she wasn’t suddenly going to die?  There was a lot of stress going on in our little apartment all surrounding this tiny person.

But we slowly figured out each challenge, talked our way through the stresses, and fairly quickly got to the point of being able to easily enjoy this little bundle and not feel so much stress.  At this point we can’t get enough of her.  Except for when she’s crying.  Well, even when she’s crying, really, because these days Malcolm often talks to her and tries to help her through her crying patches, and it is the most heart-melting thing I’ve ever heard.

I have had some of the happiest days of the last 2 years in the last 3-4 weeks. There have been some very rewarding and satisfying times while taking care of Mara, and a lot of content experiences while spending time with Malcolm and Mara as a family.  I had prepared myself for feeling very low after having Mara because of all the things I read describing postpartum depression, and the first few weeks felt like that might be something I was going to have to deal with. But once we got the big things figured out (nursing, sleeping, a bit of routine) I have for the most part felt very content with life.

We are not off to South Africa yet, for a variety of reasons, but I don’t have time for that now.  It will have to wait for the next post. But for now we are still in the States, and taking the time to enjoy our families while we can.

Recently most of the downs have had to do with not doing such a good job of dealing with my daughter crying. Sometimes I have good times when she can be screaming away and I’m calm and peaceful and understanding. Other times not so much.

Mostly for my own sake here’s my list so far (in no particular order) of things that I’ve learned about crying:

1. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what position I hold her in, or how much I thump her back, or dance around, or sing, or talk to her she’s not going to stop crying.
2. If I get too attached to the idea of needing to make her stop crying, all it does is makes me frustrated and feel like a failure.
3. A much better goal to have than to stop her crying is to try to be present with her while she cries for as long as she needs to cry. It sometimes helps me to tell her, “You can cry for as long as you need to. I don’t mind.”
4. It doesn’t work to tell her to shut up. Or to explain to her why she doesn’t need to cry. Or to try to make deals with her to convince her not to cry.
5. The hells want to use her crying to make me upset and start resenting her and my wife and feel trapped.
6. Sometimes I need to tag my wife to take over for a bit. That’s not being cowardly, that’s being tactical in the fight against resentment. With the help of a little break, maybe a snack, and watching my wife hold her and love her and be understanding of her as she cries is all that I need to be able to tag back in again.
7. Even if she cried all night and I got no sleep it wouldn’t actually ruin my entire life. I don’t need to get panicky about never getting sleep again. Chances are she won’t actually cry all night, I’ll get some sleep and be tired for good portions of the day but I can still have a good day.
8. There are lots of people out there who don’t have children for all sorts of reasons but would love to get to hold their own child as he or she cried.
9. She’s still pretty darn cute when she’s crying.
10. The Lord doesn’t mind if babies cry. He listens to billions of babies (and people) crying all the time and He loves every single one of them and never runs out of patience and understanding for them. When I feel like I don’t have anything left I can draw on His love and understanding because any that I thought I had in the first place was actually His too.

I could probably think of more but 10 is a good number (and she’s actually stopped crying at this point so maybe we can get some sleep).

What have you learned about crying?

Baby is coming any day, but we don’t know when.  Technically baby is already 5 days late, but not showing any hurry.  So life has slowed down for me.  I get to sit, read, sleep whenever I want to, visit people, watch t.v., whatever it takes to keep me from going crazy with how slow life seems to be moving.  It’s just the sort of time I’ve wanted for the past 8 months, and now I can’t wait for it to be over with.

The upside is that I need more things to do, so I’m back to writing posts.  I plan to keep it up, and soon will have the extra motivation of once again being far away from friends and family.  I make no guarantees about the content or quality as I learn to deal with sleep deprivation, a new baby, and a new country, but I’ll try.

When I got married I had heard many times that married people argue about money. (I just Googled top things couples argue about and, on the first hit, money was at the top of the list, along with sex, work, children, and housework.) I think I hoped that knowing this would mean that Abby and I would somehow be able to avoid this common pitfall but, while knowing this has been helpful (because I know that we’re not the only ones), it certainly hasn’t stopped Abby and I from having conflicts about money.

Being in Europe, with lots of cool places to go and lots of cool things to do and stores full of cool things to buy, made for plenty of… let’s call them “opportunities to work on getting better at communicating about money.” I’m sure we’re not done arguing about money but I do feel like we’ve learned some things in our last couple of hard conversations so I want to write this post as a way of sharing what we’ve learned so far and to give you a chance to share your thoughts about money if you want to.

I remembered that there’s a passage about money in marriage in Conjugial Love and I went back and read it again and, though it’s short, it really does get at the heart of the issue and the heart of the solution. One of the things on the list of external reasons for cold in marriage is differences in possessions of wealth. Here’s what it says about that.

With respect to possessions of wealth, it is apparent that differences in these induce coldness as well–unless the partners are kept together by a similarity in dispositions and manners and by an adaptation of each to the inclinations and native desires of the other. (Conjugial Love 250)

There are differences in Abby and my possessions of wealth. Simply put my family has more money than Abby’s does. So we can expect that to induce some coldness. Abby and I are lucky enough to have similarity in disposition and manners. The thing we’ve been working on (without realizing it) is adapting to each other’s inclinations and native desires.

I’m taking “inclinations and native desires” to mean the things we do and do not want to spend money on and the assumptions we have about money and the issues we have with money based on our family cultures and upbringing. In my experience these aren’t things that are immediately apparent to people; I’ve only become aware of my “inclinations and native desires” around money because of situations where things went differently than I was expecting with money because Abby has different “inclinations and native desires.”

The difficulty is, when I’m in the midst of a disagreement about spending or not spending money, I’m not in the most receptive mood to hear about Abby’s “inclinations and native desires.” I’m in the mood to explain to her about my “inclinations and native desires” and why she needs to understand and respect my approach. And so we have these conversations where we take turns explaining all the things that made us upset about what’s happened because of the way we approach money. That’s a good start (I think) but the real trick is to get to the point where each of us is willing to adapt to the “inclinations and native desires” of the other. I have to stop thinking about my perspective on money and what’s happened and start trying to empathize with what it would be like to be Abby dealing with what’s happened, based on her perspective on money, and dealing with having a husband like me.

When Abby feels like I understand why she’s upset and I feel like Abby understands why I feel upset then we have some hope of getting over being upset. This doesn’t tell us how we should budget but it gets us in a frame of mind where we might be able to actually figure out a budget that works for both of us.

I’ve been working on this post for a while. In one version of it I wrote out a summary of what I’ve learned about my “inclinations and native desires” and Abby’s. I wrote them both in the third person. “Malcolm grew up in a family that always had enough money.” “Abby grew up in a family that sometimes didn’t have enough money.” I’ve decided not to post these on the internet because they’re a bit too personal but I recommend trying this. If you’re single, just write about your story of money; if you’re married, try writing about yours and your spouse’s. I recommend writing in the third person because it can help you be more objective. I’m just writing about this guy named Malcolm and his experiences, thoughts and fears about money. He’s just one guy.

This is what I’ve learned about money and marriage. What are your thoughts?

The passage above ends with an encouraging description of what happens to these differences in wealth after death so I’ll end with that.

In contrast, in heaven one does not find a difference in partners’ ages, positions in society, or possessions of wealth. With respect to age, all there are in the flower of their youth, and they remain in it to eternity. With respect to position in society, all there regard others in accordance with the useful services they render, with the more eminent in position viewing those lower as comrades. Nor do they put status before the value of service, but the value of service before status. Besides, when girls there get married, they do not know from what family they have descended; for no one in heaven knows who his father was on earth, but the Lord is the father of all.

It is similar with respect to possessions of wealth. Riches there are their gifts for becoming wise. In accordance with these gifts they are given a sufficiency of wealth.

We’ve gone to:

• An Indian restaurant ( which we had to do because London is famous for it’s Indian food, and it was quite good. We were actually trying to go have a REAL British pub experience but the pub closed their kitchen at 8 so we went for the still open Indian restaurant. Still no pub experience, but oh well.)
• Greenwich

You can see the green line across the sky? That is a laser showing the Grenwich meridian line.

Us, standing in the rain outside the pub in Greenwich that we planned to go to but found closed for the night.

Looking out across the water from Grenwich in the rain.

• The national gallery (Van Gogh, Monet, Michaelangelo, DaVinci)
• St. Martins in the Fields  for a free lunch time concert–I’ve actually been to 3 but Malcolm could only come to 1)
• Big Ben
• The Parliament buildings
• Westminster Abbey (we really only went to these and saw them. We didn’t pay to go in as they are actually quite expensive)

Westminster area at night.

• The south bank of the Thames (there is a nice walking path right along the river with all sorts of nice shops and markets along the way.)
• Shakespeare’s Globe theater reproduction (again, we just saw it from the outside. But we were with a friend of Malcolm’s from South Africa, so it was nice to just walk around and get to visit)

us outside the reproduction of the Globe.

• Harrods (the biggest most expensive department store I’ve ever seen)

Harrods

• The stage production of “The Lion King”
• Trafalgar Square
• Leicester Square

I’ve gone to:

• The Victoria and Albert museum (the name is misleading. They’ve got EVERYTHING. I think it is one of the most extensive and varied museums I’ve ever been to. Apparently they have over 7 miles of galleries.)
• Hyde park
• Kensington gardens
• Albert memorial
• Covent gardens
• Portabello road (it is just like the song from “Bed Knobs and Broomsticks.” anything you can think of you could find there. I left having spent too much money but in a marvelous mood.)
• The national portrait gallery (including: pictures of modern celebrities ie an exhibit of Twiggy one of the first super models; pictures of the Tudors; large portraits and miniatures of Elizabeth I; and even a portrait of Shakespeare)
• Shopping around a bit in different places

We’ve done all that and still the list of things to do goes on and on! For a lot of the bigger monuments we really just went and saw them and didn’t really go in them at all because they are pretty expensive to get into but there are a lot of free museums, so I think we’ll put most of our time into going to those. Oh and we did also go to the British Museum briefly, but it wasn’t during this last week, and I would love to go back.

We’ve also gone and visited two church groups, one in a town called Guildford in Surrey, and one in a town called Bushey in North London. Malcolm gave the class on both of those evenings so you can see why he has been busy and so why I have been doing some exploring on my own. We’ve been going and going and going but we are enjoying it all which means we’re not really feeling exhausted we just don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.

But we are very nearly done! One more week of working for Malcolm which involves one chapel service, one class, and preaching the same sermon twice in one day for two different groups. And then we are off for our week of holiday and then we are home! I am almost more excited about being home than I am about seeing the lake district which is saying a lot because when we set out that was one of the things I was looking forward to the most.

A summary too short for all the adventures we’ve had in this week, but that’s the best I can do for now.  Oh!  I forgot about our trip to Oxford! Well, check Facebook for those pictures, and know that we had a grand day there.

Throughout this trip and especially in the last couple of days, we have been riding on a lot of public transportation and most of that has been trains.  I love riding on trains.  And one of the things that I love about it is that you can put on headphones and listen to music as you go, only half paying attention to where you are going since you don’t have to be paying attention to the road or directions.  And on a lot of these trips that music that I have been listening to is the album “Far” by Regina Spektor.  Her music feeds my soul.  it is amazing that time and again I can listen to her music and even just after finishing a song I want to go back and listen to it again.  There is just something in the melody and the harmony, the key of the music, the tone, the feel, the lyrics that draws me in.  And I can’t get enough of it.  Even on the train all I want to do is burst into song trying as hard as I can to get as much subtlety and emotion into my voice as she does.  And with other song, all it takes is listening to it and I could, if I let myself, be suddenly sobbing.  Her music somehow just grabs me on a very deep level.  And it amazes me that it happens again and again–every time I listen to the song!

Music has always been a big part of my life since my Mom had us singing as a family even before I was born. But I feel like it isn’t very often that music can get at me so thoroughly.  I’m not saying that I think Regina’s music will do this for everyone, or even that I expect everyone to like it.  I was just struck with the power of the music and it got me thinking.  Communication of emotions and feelings through a medium like music is so powerful.  I will never doubt the usefulness of music as a therapy, or the usefulness of it in an individual’s life even if they aren’t a professional because I think on some level the right music can feed a person, unlock emotions, and allow for different types of expression and that seems very valuable to me.  I sometimes feel critical of myself if I want to spend time or money on taking some sort of musical lesson, because I feel like what’s the point if you aren’t going to use it professionally?

But I think I’ve found an argument to fight back those critical thoughts in the wonderful feelings I get every time I listen to Regina Spektor’s music.

This last week Malcolm was working very hard on his sermon for Sunday.  He would work all day with only a short break for lunch, and from about Wednesday on, he worked after supper as well.  This isn’t his normal pattern, and not what he planned, but the result because of complications in the sermon that meant it needed more time and re-writing.  As a result, I had a lot of time on my own.  Finding a balance socially is not something I am very good at, and one of the things that I was working on figuring out when we were at home.  But now being abroad, where I don’t have friends or an easy way of getting to know people, I am definitely feeling the lack of socializing.  We got through the week well, though, enjoying our bits of time here and there to reconnect.  The problem was, by the time Monday and a day off came around, we were both putting a lot of pressure on that day to provide us with fun, good connections, good communications, making plans, going shopping and exploring, getting food….too many expectations to fit into one day.  Ultimately I would say that the day was a success, and we felt closer and more loved by the end of it, even if the process involved some grumpiness, some frustration and a fair amount emotional ups and downs.

While I am feeling up and hopeful, and like life is great today, one of the main things I am left with from yesterday is the thought that relationships and marriage are hard!  I think we have been equipped with a lot of really helpful and applicable communication skills which help days like yesterday to go more smoothly and to feel like we were really always in a discussion rather than an argument or a fight.  And never was I feeling like “man, this just isn’t worth it!” I was always feeling glad to be married, and sure that it would be totally worth the process once we had it all sorted, but now and in the moment I was feeling frustrated that it had to be so much work.  But it has also brought home to me how significant relationships are for personal growth and regeneration.  There’s just no two ways about it–being in a relationship, and especially being in a marriage, force you to look at yourself, take responsibility for your side of the issue, and work on not doing it again.  And that takes a lot of effort sometimes.

So I can see the benefits to having to go through times like these, but still I feel like asking WHY can’t it just be fun?  Why can’t it be easy?  I know I love Malcolm, I know I want to stay married to him and be a good wife to him, so why can’t we just have a good time of it all the time?  Why do we have to work at it and prove it again and again?  I don’t like feeling frustrated and grumpy, and let down, and selfish and demanding–so why do those things keep coming up?

I think that this trip has been wonderful in providing me with a lot of opportunity to think about these things, and to work on them.  And each time we have to work something through we do make progress, do end up closer to each other and, I at least, feel more understood as a person.  And those feelings are pretty great.  So I guess if I have to go through those other bad feelings to get to these good feelings then it is worth the process and better than just being at the same level of closeness and happiness all the time because it will be getting deeper and deeper….but boy is it hard sometimes.

I have really enjoyed what I have seen of Colchester.  It is a pretty little town with a fun mix of old and new buildings.  I haven’t made it there yet this week, but I am hoping to go and tour around the Colchester Castle.  The people have all been very friendly, too.  But it is funny that I still find myself expecting there to be a language barrier.  And I am sure that there is one to some degree just in terms of what vocabulary we use in America vs. in Britain, but it is nothing like Swedish vs. American English.  This is much easier.

Before we left on this trip I bought a ukulele.  I had been thinking that I wanted a new hobby of sorts, and when I got a new album with a lot of ukulele that got me thinking.  There were tons available quite cheaply on ebay, so I bought one.  And because it is so small and SO light, I brought it with us.  The silly part was that I didn’t have any books about how to play!  I was downloading sheet music from a website, but it was a sort of hassel-some way of looking up technique, etc. and I had trouble finding the information I needed.  When we were in Sweden I even saw a book about how to play the ukulele–but it was in Swedish.  But yesterday as I was walking through Colchester I found a music shop, and they had several books for beginning ukulele players.  So I bought one and have been trying it out.  I think it will help me a lot in becoming more familiar with how to play well, and it is nicer than trying to find information online. So now I can really give some time to my new hobby, and I am really enjoying it.

Well, that’s a bit about how we’re doing.  Malcolm is preaching here in Colchester on Sunday, so he is busy busy busy getting that written.  But I think he’s enjoying it, so that is good even if it does mean I’m on my own when it comes to adventuring around.  Over all we are doing well, and continuing to enjoy our European Tour.