Today has been better than yesterday. This mothering thing is a skill, eh? I have so often reassured moms-to-be or new first time moms who feel so overwhelmed with one 8 pound bundle saying that mothering is a skill, just like accounting or any other job we could have. You can’t expect to be an expert your very first months or even year! And so with taking care of babies; you gain the skills and get so much better with each baby. So now I tell myself with mothering in general, much of it is a matter of skill. Work at it and I will improve. I have much to learn, like how to disarm a 20 month old with a hug or a tickle instead of a short-tempered “stop-it!” and to make that my first reaction instead of last!

I gave my blog its name because I purpose and strive to apply myself as much to mothering as I would to being Intel CEO. This includes lots of learning, focus, long hours, sweat, tears, stress, prayer and loads of grace! I am finding God to be the best chairman of the board ever, giving loads of encouragement, reward, incentives and a few choice bonuses. He has even offered this heavenly stock purchase plan with great interest if I make the choice to invest in it.

Other random thoughts - I secretly desire to be the world’s best Karaoke singer. I’ve got to get one of those machines!

I have such renewed energy to blog. I really was not myself that last month of pregnancy. Blogging motivates and unifies the rest of my life and interests so well. I am inspired to cook again just so I can post more great recipes. I am inspired in my prayer life through reading some other faithful women’s blogs. I feel accountable in my life, because I want to post about it here and I want to be able to be truthful, yet I know such godly men and women ocassionally drop by. (I have been feeling guilty about my movie list all day! Anyone have any cleaner comedies I could watch?)

Since I can’t tele-blog straight from my mind, I have found keeping a notepad out to immediately jot down topics and thoughs as soon as I think of them helpful. I usually can’t blog until later in the evening and by then all thoughts are cleared out of my brain. This little list here help them find their way back!

As I sit here with little Ella curled in my crossed leg, so alert and beautful, every feature so tiny, perfect, soft and lovely, I am shocked and revolted to think that someday, in what is but a blink of eternity’s eye, her skin will be dull and scaly, too big for her face. Age and death will take its toll on her. Have you ever noticed how the motions and expressions of the newborn and the elderly can be so similar? Both have imperfect neruon connections between mind and body, one because they are developing and the other because they are degenerating. From dust we came, to dust we go.

When I cudle and adore my new little one, aging and death truly seem wrong and cruel in a powerful way that they had not before. It is strange to birth such a miraculous, beautiful new person at the same time in life when you begin to see your own parents start to fade away. It grieved me deeply to think of Ella aging and facing death’s cold door. Truly, if in this life only we hope, we are above all to be most pittied.

Upon these meditations, I yearned for the Word of God again. For various reasons, many months have past since I have felt a longing for the Word. But life an death have become more and more painfully vivid to me. I crave assurances of His promises. I pant for the truths of salvation to become more vibrant and real than this stench of sin and death that so permeates the world. I could not bear to love this little one so unless I had a hope to give her beyond death, unless I could promise her that the struggles of this life are not worthy to be compared to the future we have been given.