two hearts

It's grey and wet here, and it's been raining all weekend. We're soaked and damp. It feels like Oregon in the winter. Three years ago this weekend, and again a year later, we were at weddings, and both were blessed with warm, sunny days that make this time of summer just perfect. And now, this.

Daniel woke up crying last night around 3, and it took a long time to get him back to sleep. I think he must be teething. Sometimes I wonder if he has bad dreams. Anyway, Steve and I were so tired when we got up, and so dragged down by the weather, that we decided to skip church. Instead, we piled Daniel into the car and took a long drive, over to Stillwater and up the St. Croix River, through the quaint little towns. We did our own version church in the car while Daniel took a sound nap. I read the readings, and we talked about how they fit into our lives. (They were fierce readings, nothing pretty or easy. They were about taking unpopular stands in the face of society's values, being willing to follow Jesus even if it causes division within a very family.) We do these Sunday drives every couple of months, and I love them. And need them. They give us time to really talk, something we used to do all the time. Now, we rarely get enough quality time to talk about things besides Daniel and the day-to-day of our busy lives. It's crazy how that time together just slips away from us.

I've been thinking about how last year around this time, I was starting my protracted week of start-and-stop labor. I was so tired of being pregnant. All I wanted to do was meet the little boy who had been growing and kicking and rolling around my belly all those months. I don't think I ever would have dreamed that one year later, another little heart would be beating inside me. Life is so unpredictable.