various thoughts on jack

for awhile i've been thinking that i'd do some really awesome blogging while on my paternity leave/winter break, especially on jack. that hasn't happened, in part because i haven't written regularly in a few years and in part because i now always get less than six hours of sleep a night. i'm like uncle rico trying to mount a comeback and it isn't going so well. so rather than trying to toss the pigskin over that mountain over there, here are a few shovel passes to try and get things going.

1. jack is so stinking cute. he's little and has more hair than all the infants and pastors at my church combined. i love that hair. shannon and i sometimes will say "he's so stinking cute" five or six times in a very short period of time while staring at him, eyes glazed and hearts warmed. some people would barf if they knew how often we said this. but cuteness really helps at 4am.

2. people love babies and anything related to babies. you put a baby in front of anyone and they just melt and start saying "he's so stinking cute" like fifty times. we went to a christmas party about two weeks after jack was born, leaving him with a baby sitter. shannon was instantly surrounded by about ten people, men and women, while she told the birth story. this is a story that includes the words "dilation," "pain," "cervix," and "i wanted to kiss the anesthesiologist on the mouth." everyone was ecstatic.

3. the support of family and friends has been incredibly life giving over the past 6 weeks. their constant love has been amazing, simply amazing. it's been wonderful to see them wrap jack into their lives, not as some accessory but as a focal point of their love and care, one for whom they will bend the shape of their lives to fit him in.

4. jack has been on twitter since he was two weeks old. 140 coherent characters has been about as good as we've been able to pull off.

5. i've discovered that grandparents are addicted to their grandchildren. they must at all costs find the easiest ways to satisfy their cravings. jack is forcing my mom, who is basically afraid of the internet, to get on facebook. she's learned that this is the quickest and most consistent way to get her jack fix. shan's parents have driven to cville at least six times in the six weeks he's been alive, even though we spent a week down there over christmas. my parents have driven the six hours from asheville twice and are doing it again in a couple weeks and then again at least a couple more times this spring.

6. i've talked to a number of dads who had only a week or two off before heading back to work, but i've had so much time with jack and shannon. uva's academic calendar is designed, apparently, to prepare its students for life in a country i'm not quite familiar with, possibly france, where you take every friday off and get a six week break for winter holidays. it's a strange system, but we've benefitted from it.

7. jack received more christmas presents than shannon and me combined. and it wasn't even close. like west virginia vs. clemson not even close.

8. it took four weeks before all three of us got up before nine am. i've slept til ten more times in the past six weeks than in the last six years combined.

9. i've been reflecting a bit on the hope we have through the incarnation and how children are very real signs of that hope. children aren't meant to be a reflection of their parents, carefully molded into whatever their mom and dad dream them to be. rather they are a reflection of the image of god, which can never quite be captured or make predictable, but manifests itself in innumerable delightful ways.

on one level, jack's existence is the consequence of parents who weren't too good at math and got a surprise baby as a result. woops!

but on another, deeper level, jack is here because there is hope for this world, dark though it may be in many ways. children are a testament that jesus has not left this world alone and that new birth and new life are here and are real.