Almost 7 weeks. Things are changing.
Ellie will be 7 weeks old on Sunday. To put it mildly, that just seems crazy. It’s not going too fast, but I sure don’t want to blink.
From the Hearth
updates on our growing family by Chris Krycho
The folks reading this blog may or may not know how Jaimie and I have walked through her struggle with clinical depression over the last three and a half years. You can find some of our story, and - more importantly - some of the huge lessons I learned about walking through a spouse's depression in this new post at Ardent Fidelity:
You are not the hero of this story. Jesus is. The sooner you get that, the sooner you'll have any chance at all of really helping your spouse in this time.
The hard reality - and the good reality - is that, much as we want to, we cannot fix our spouse's depression. No words, no encouragement, no number of chores taken up on their behalf will do the trick. There is no switch to flip, no magic incantation to take away the darkness. That doesn't make those things meaningless. Your spouse needs every bit of help you can give. But operate with no illusions: you will not make your husband or wife better with those actions.
This is freeing, really. You can simply do your best every moment, and trust that God is bigger and greater and capable of doing all you cannot do. You can't carry her; don't try. Do what you can do.
Dancing with Ellie Kay
Tonight, Elayne (whom we have taken to calling "Ellie Kay") decided she was going to be fussy. Unless I was "dancing" with her. I had The Piano Guys playing, and if I held her in my lap or the crook of my arm, she fussed... but if I held her up in front of me, gently bouncing her back and forth in time to the music, she quieted down and got the closest thing to a smile a 3-week old can do.
She looked as happy as can be, and my heart melted. Jaimie, through a closed door and with the shower running, could nonetheless hear me exclaiming about how cute our little girl is. It's hard not to exclaim, when she just looks perfectly content and happy as long as I'm dancing with her.
Let's keep dancing together, Ellie Kay.
Elayne Kaylee Krycho
Alternate title: So, we had a baby…
Most of you have gotten the memo already, but Jaimie and I had our little girl! Elayne Kaylee Krycho was born on May 27 at 1:39 pm; she weighed 6 pounds and 4 oz, and she was just over 18 inches long.
Regular readers of this blog who don’t necessarily make their way over to my theology blog may be interested in my review of Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding A Child’s Heart. From my conclusion:
Shepherding a Child’s Heart is thus a very strange mix of very good and just plain bad. I can’t recommend it wholeheartedly by any means; neither can I dismiss it out of hand. There is a lot of good in Tripp’s parenting philosophy, and some very good material in his applications of that philosophy, especially as it relates to communication. But there is equally bad material in some of his application, and unnecessarily so. Were Tripp to be a bit more self-consistent, he would have a much better book.
It’s official: we’ve now entered the stage of life where free evenings include an hour of moving and assembling cribs instead of reading.
A Mother’s Day Letter to My Wife
My love,
Today is your first Mother’s Day, and I thought it might be nice to pen you a note. (I was going to buy you flowers, but my aunt and uncle beat me to the punch.)
In the four and a half years I’ve known you, and in the almost three we’ve been married, I’ve gotten to see you walk through the fire of some very great ordeals. So I know your strength, your courage, and your willingness to press on – your willingness to soldier through, even when doing so entails considerable pain and frustration in your life. I know your heart for God, the way you want to please Him with your life, and the depths of your commitment to loving him. I know your compassion, and your incredibly tender heart, and your sweet and gentle spirit. I know your verve, too, and the strength of character that runs in your veins. In short: I know you to be a truly excellent woman. Read on, intrepid explorer →