A Baby!
The biggest news this month, by far, is that Jess is pregnant! We’re both really excited about raising a family.
We’re at about 5 week as of Thanksgiving, putting the due date (by Jess’ research) at around July 27, 2013.
For some reason, I have a strong feeling it’ll be a girl… from our pastor Mike thinking we had a girl before he knew us, to Lindsey’s dream about us dressing our future-daughter as a punk-rocker (over a year ago) and the fact that my mom used to joke that some day us 4 boys would have a bunch of girls to off-set those 5-to-1 days.
If we do have a boy, obviously I can see how much that’d be fun too. I’d also enjoy using a boy name I have stored up… Levi Ethan (Leviathan!) or my old favorite Zail Evan. Twins could work.
Though it’s obviously a bit of new news for me and a lot to process, I feel unusually comfortable with the idea. I’ve had this new and strange sensation the past year or so… like I miss my kids even though I don’t know them yet. I catch myself admiring kids far more often than ever and like to daydream about being a dad; holding a little hand while on a walk, cuddling during Land Before Time 16, even cleaning up messes and doing some needed disciplining. It all sounds really fun and fitting to me. I don’t know why I’m not there yet.
I think the major hurdle I’ve had to overcome this past year is the fear of responsibility. The fear isn’t just as shallow as not wanting to have to afford kids (financial or time-wise), but more of fearing that somehow all my passions will be replaced by parenthood. I was afraid that I couldn’t do something with my life and be a father beyond that simultaneously. I think that maturing into a man who wants a family has helped me see things in a truer light.
Since we’ve stopped taking birth control, I’ve been committed to surrender that fear. One of the comforting realizations that came out of that surrender is that our identities in Christ are permanent. Hobbies can change, we can find new dreams, jobs, and interests, but the identity we’re given from before birth is something too big for us to change. We are who we are, which is a divine mark that, at the core, we can never change. We can ignore it, run from it and pretend against it, but since that’s what I want to define me, I don’t think I’m really risking abandoning my spiritual DNA. I will always write and long to record and perform music. I’ll always be interested in developing metaphoric and character-driven adventure stories (video games). There’s no reason that the creative things I did without being told to (out of pure passion) should change with having a bigger family to enjoy life with, just like that didn’t change when I left home, or got married. If anything, having a bigger life (family) adds to the fuel for creativity. After all, I see my creativity as the plot of land I’ve been given to farm both fruit and a living on.
Through this surrender of fearing parenthood, I’ve realized that my passions will thrive through what I was fearing, not shrivel up.
No Shave November Until I Loose 20 lbs.
I always wanted to join in the November tradition/trend (mostly spread through Facebook, to my knowledge) of guys not shaving their face for the whole month of November (I guess most girls participate too, by default). I don’t want to just grow a beard though… I already have one. I wanted to take this opportunity for something beyond beards. I thought that since I recently regained about half of the 30 lbs that I lost over the past 2 years, I should go ahead and get that back off at full-speed, plus the rest to reach my goal-weight.
A few years ago I was about 230-235 lbs and tired of feeling like a chub. We picked up P90X and let it evolve over the years into something manageable. I ended up in better shape than ever. Over two years later, I tried to adapt my intense workout to something that would take less than 10 hours a week. I traded an hour of kenpo/plyometrics for 30 minute jogs and started drinking Monster Energy instead of eating fruit. Little things over the past 3 or 4 months have returned me to 215-220 lbs. range. Drateds
Weight isn’t a huge deal to me, but for my age and how active I am with furniture deliveries and in general, it means a lot of other things… like how good I feel, how much energy I really have, and how prone I am to injury. My outlook also improves in other areas, the more I discipline myself physically.
So here I go, no shaving until I see the scale read 199. If I get to grow a stupid-awesome beard in the process of getting back on track: all the better. Thankfully the weight of hair shouldn’t add to the challenge too much… unless it takes me more than 6 months to get down to a new low 🙂