John Steinbeck must have known about Evie.

I can't believe how quickly she's growing up. In less than six months, we've gone

from this:

to this:

I understand why people do this having babies thing more than once. It's because when babies are born, families enter a time warp and months seem like weeks, weeks seem like days, and days seem, you guessed it, like minutes.

We have had an incredible first six months of Evie's life. It has not been easy, especially restful or relaxing, or without physical or emotional challenges, but any meaningful time in life rarely is. As (one of my favorites) John Steinbeck says,

"For what good is color in perpetual green, 

or what good is warmth 

without cold to give it sweetness?"

A year ago, I was training in earnest for the 1st annual Next Step 5k, a 5k walk created to help raise ongoing support for stroke survivors. I was teaching half time and still working-working-working in physical and occupational therapy. Months of picking up wooden pins and placing them in a wooden block. Manipulating cotton balls up and down my palm. Tying ribbons above my head using both hands.  Pilates exercises to strengthen my shoulder girdle. Hopping from one foot to another around a square for balance and strength. All the while improving my left handed writing and relearning how to balance life, work, and family.

A year ago was definitely not the 'cold' of my life by any means, but I still felt an occasional chill.

This year, I'm training again for the 2nd annual Next Step 5k with other survivor stories on my mind. I'm teaching full time, I've taken on additional challenges at work this year, and though I'm still working on therapy, I've been discharged from both physical and occupational therapy. I can do things this year that I would have never imagined. A baby provides the best therapy possible: she's the physical challenge with the motivation built right in. Instead of wooden pins and cotton balls, I now have the challenges of changing a diaper at 3am on a squirmy baby, turning door locks and handles while holding a fifteen pound little lady in her car seat, lifting and carrying the cutest weight you have ever seen, twisting the tops of bottles and baby food jar lids, and manipulating a baby spoon and food with both hands. All the while still improving my left handed writing and still relearning how to balance life, work, and a growing family.

The biggest change in all of this, however, is a new reason to improve. It's all about Evie. And man, she is worth the hard work. One smile, and I'm willing to keep going. 

She is our warmth, made especially sweet with the cold our lives have known. Six months. A half of a year.

Six months have given us two teeth,

a lot of learning,

a lot of laugher,

a new extended family,

a family I once wondered if I would ever have. Brad and Evie are more than I could have ever asked for or imagined.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!" 
- Ephesians 3:20-21