Welcome Richard Junior

Thank you, Mallory Nelson Photography for capturing how beautiful our little boy is.

Richard Joseph's First Bottle

Here is a video clip of Richard Joseph's first bottle. I say on the video that it's April 20, but it's actually April 21, which makes him three weeks and TWO days old. If anybody's counting.

Let the record show that I HATE this milestone. And that it was necessary to offer him a bottle on this day because I was so sick with the flu that I was too dehydrated to nurse. Praise the Lord I had started pumping and freezing breastmilk about a week before. Thankfully, things are getting back to normal now.

Richard didn't LOVE his bottle, but he didn't hate it, either. One more step to a couple hours of freedom for mommy!

Phone Pics

Here are some of my best photos from my phone over the last three weeks:

I was so excited to send a picture of our new baby to friends and family from the hospital. I later learned that hardly anybody got my picture, and even fewer people got his name and info.

This was the picture I tried to send:First smile for Mama in the hospital.
Not thrilled about burping.
"How YOU doin'?"

Pensive.

Tuckered.

Another smile for Mama.

Biiiiig yawn.

"Oh!"

More yawns.

"Again, Daddy?! Again?"

The Thinker.

Angel baby.

With Sadness

My Sweet Angel,

I love you with sadness and joy.

Sadness because I can feel you slipping away from me already, and joy because in you I can see the glory of God.

My heart is torn between the excitement of watching you grow and the agony of change.

I can't sleep at night, because it's at night that you change the most. I lie awake while you are sleeping and think about you and watch you dreaming about heaven as it grows more and more distant from your memory with each moment. I can sleep when I am dead.

While you are sleeping I pray for you, my darling. I pray for your future--your husband, the woman you will become, the mother you will one day be.

I pray that God will touch your heart as you sleep here in my lap and that He will walk with you as you grow and change as His creation.

I love you, my little girl.

Love,

Mama