darling babies - later-post

i picked up my computer a dozen times in this last couple of months to blog - and a dozen times I haven't been able to follow through.
Even now, I hear Elmer stirring upstairs and I doubt i'll get more than a line or so down before he calls with his gentle cry and i'll have to run to him. He's tiny and soft now - his baby rolls are just starting to form - and the feeding of his little frame has consumed us both these last weeks.
(True enough, this post had to sit half finished while I filled the needs of my tiny one who cries to be held - and rewards my efforts with giant gummy smiles.)
We're in some years that feel like a giant rollercoaster ride - or maybe it's something less civilized yet - this season that rocks and sways, brings us to terrifying heights and plummets us towards earth while our hearts pound and we wonder if we'll survive at all.
We have you, daughter entering your last year of highschool, and you, tiny son, just born - and six of you in between, all at various stages of growth and life. We have a daddy who travels  (who by the time I post this will have come and gone again maybe a dozen times...) and a mama who clings to Jesus - a family that is held together by love and grit... And a Saviour who holds us all.

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I can tell it's him - arriving home after a late night flight - because the door shuts softly. My sprite daughter won't be home from work for another half hour, and my tiny baby won't wake for his first night feed for another hour after that. He pads up the stairs, and I rub my eyes and struggle to sit up in bed.
He always looks so good to me when he gets home from the road. His shoulders are so broad and his skin so brown. He smiles that smile that melts me and starts to unload his suitcase. His voice is low and full of warmth - and mine answers his in sleepy-we-have-a-newborn-again tones. Our conversations wind gently around you children that we made together.
And the one thing that I feel like I did right is to love your daddy. We've fought and made each other mad and sad before... I made him want to pull out his hair, and he made me cry... but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I love this man who has borne the weight of this growing family all these years.
Cause it all comes down to relationships, little ones.
It never stops being about relationships.
You can try to do and you can try to be and you can give and cry and rage...
Or you can just love and open yourself up to real relationship.  The kind that bends without breaking, stretches without tearing and grows you stronger with the joy and the pain...
So I let him see me.. like... really see me. When he's gone, I text him my vulnerability.
"Be soft with me when you get home."
Because he's a big exhausted man who might miss the subtle nuances of a tender wife who has missed him desperately.
"I will. I promise." He responds.
And i'm heard.
And he does.
Babies... I love your daddy.
And together... we love you.
And this family - is a gift that none of us choose to take for granted.