sleeping

I'm writing this with one hand, while Olivia snores on my chest.

Thinking back over these past couple of weeks, I'm surprised more than anything by how natural it has felt to have Olivia with us. Not much shock or confusion; stressful at times, but always feeling somehow like this is how it is supposed to be. I don't believe in fate or divine will in these things, but it's a good feeling anyway. This is our child, a brand new person but already closer to us than most; this is our family.

And Olivia, despite having a very limited sense of her environment and means of expressing herself, nonetheless has a profound effect on us. Through our new roles as parents, we discover more of ourselves, and of each other; but even more than that, it is this new role that further molds and shapes who we actually are.

Recently I've been thinking about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. We understand this as a "test" of his faith. Does God really need these experiments to see inside the human heart? Or is it instead that we need these experiences to become the people he is looking for? Strangely, it is the challenges that we find ourselves in that cause us to become people who are able to meet and succeed at them.

Or, to put it another way, the things I do are what determine who I become.

Having gone through many changes in the past couple of years, I think I have become more aware of how I define myself in relation to my world. The question who am I, really? is always floating somewhere in my subconscious. Maybe time will help answer that question; but for now I enjoy the uncertainty, even as I wonder the same about my daughter, who is (thankfully) still snoring soundly.

Goodnight.

2-week Birthday

So, of course we've fallen into the "new parent trap" of taking way too many pictures of Olivia. It will be nice to look back in a few months to see how she's grown. Here are the best ones.