Meaning

Yesterday Sean tried to introduce a little diversity into Walter's recent video viewing (since he's been sick, an endless loop of The Muppets, Sesame Street you tube clips, and covers of favorite Woody Guthrie songs) by breaking out our Fraggle Rock collection.  He chose season 2, disc 1 (season 2 being the best season, in our opinion.)

It's a good choice, but it's a choice we made once before, and when the episode started I was immediately transported back three years ago, the last time we turned to fraggles for distraction during a difficult time.  I was off from work, I spent my days resting with my feet up, I took frequent baths, all as I'm doing now.  But three years ago I wasn't on bedrest, I was having a miscarriage--slowly losing our first pregnancy over the course of a very long, very sad week.  

The first episode on season 2, disc 1 is an episode about Wembley Fraggle becoming a parent.  The episode starts with Wembley feeling depressed, feeling like his life lacks meaning and purpose. Someone (Boober, I think?) makes the comment that meaning doesn't just fall from the sky.  Suddenly, a large object drops from the sky into the fraggle pond. The fraggles all panic, except Wembley, who recognizes the giant egg as "a house for babies."  The fraggles, including his friends, all think Wembley is crazy.  He is defiant, and tells them he's going to do what you do with eggs: sit on it.  The fraggles think this is hilarious, and even his friends can't help but laugh at Wembley's expense.

Wembley sticks to his guns, devoting himself to the task of caring for the egg and the tree creature inside. He talks to the baby and sings the baby a lullaby.  Early the next morning, the egg hatches.  The baby tree creature emerges and immediately identifies Wembley as "Mama!"

Being a Mama is not easy, Wembley soon finds.  He can't figure out what to feed his baby.  His friends have gone from not believing Wembley to being fairly annoyed with him and the baby, who is larger than a full-grown fraggle and very, very needy.  The baby gets depressed (much like Wembley at the beginning of the episode) and Wembley realizes that tree creatures want to fly, so the fraggles all come together and sing a song as a flying lesson.  But they can't teach the baby to fly, and Wembley realizes his baby needs to be with other tree creatures.  It's a very hard decision and Wembley has to be prevented from going with the baby, but ultimately the baby is returned to its tree creature parents, who have been mourning their loss and are overjoyed to be reunited with their baby.  Now Wembley is mourning, until he sees his baby soaring, joyfully flying and shouting "Fly! Fly!"  Wembley is still sad, but happy, too. 

Yeah, it's pretty intense.  Too intense for Walter, it turns out, although I think he was overwhelmed less by the emotional content and more by the really annoying, high-pitched crying noises the baby tree creature makes (Walter ... we are not going to be able to turn off your baby sister and turn her crying into Woody Guthrie's "Take you riding in my car, car" ... I'm sorry.)

Too intense, for me, too. "I can skip this one," Sean said, in 2010 and in 2013.  "No, it's OK," I said three years ago and this weekend.  And yesterday I added, "We've come so far."

Most pastors really only have a handful of sermons that they give over and over again with slightly different words and nuances.  One of my sermons is about idolatry, and how you can come face to face with what you've put in the place of God in your life by asking yourself "What am I most afraid of losing?"  My answer to that question is unequivocal: my family. And you might think, "Well, that's not so bad.  If her biggest problem is that she loves her family too much ... big deal." But no human relationship, nothing on earth, can bear the weight and burden of being made into a god.  It's not fair to make your spouse or your child THE source of meaning, purpose, and hope in your life.  Like Wembley, you will find yourself weeping as you watch them fly away, your meaning taken from you by the inevitables of growing up, of distance, of time, of death. 

But ... and here's something I didn't realize until yesterday and need to add to my sermon ... the episode ends with hope.  Wembley has lost his baby, but he hasn't lost his meaning, and he hasn't lost the meaning and the joy he gained from his time as a Mama.  We shouldn't make our families (biological, adopted, appended, chosen, immediate, extended, ecclesial, etc.) into our god, but our families do give us a glimpse of God, a lived experience of the meaning, purpose and love that come from God.  

Edison-Albright family picture, 2006

Today, Sean and I are celebrating our seven year wedding anniversary.  I use the term "celebrating" rather loosely since we're not, like, going out for fancy dinner or on a romantic date or something like that.  We're even a little skittish about kissing each other, since Sean seems to have picked up Walter's cold.  Between Sean caring for me and Walter and the dog and the house and trying to catch up on some of the time he missed from work, it seems unlikely that this evening will bring any sort of romantic respite for either of us.  And pretty unlikely in the near future, too, as we're kind of, you know, expecting a baby any minute now but if not any minute then certainly next week, Wednesday.

And yet, we are celebrating, and it is romantic.  Here we are, right on the cusp of a new adventure in family life, hanging onto the edge of that cusp like our lives depend on it.  When I kissed Sean this morning I felt the thrill not only of living dangerously with germs, but of that spark, that attraction, that love that brought us together in the first place and keeps bringing us together again and again. 

I'm not going to say that Sean gives my life meaning. That's an awful lot of pressure to put on a guy, even a guy as wonderful as Sean. But I will say that, through Sean, I've gotten to experience a meaning and a love much bigger and greater than just us two.  We've come so far since the day we met in 1999, from our first kisses in 2002, from our wedding in 2006, from the miscarriage in 2010, from Walter's birth in 2011 ... from yesterday, really.  I'm excited to keep going, to jump off this cusp and onto the next, to find new ways of making meaning together.

Happy anniversary to us, novelgazer.  I'm so glad I get to fly with you. 

Edison-Albright family picture, 2013

Symptoms include ...

The Mayo Clinic Guide to Terrifying Pregnant People says to expect these things during the second trimester:

Vivid, unpleasant dreams
Check!  Although they haven't been as bad as my usual anxiety nightmares, just more life-like and frantic.  I'm usually doing something that requires a tremendous amount of energy, like directing a high school musical.  I wake up exhausted.  This morning, though, I had an incredibly vivid dream that I was eating oatmeal.  Then I woke up and ate some oatmeal for breakfast (and some for lunch, too.)  What a helpful dream!

GERD
Heartburn, baby.  Acid reflux-o-rama.  Did you know that all good foods cause heartburn?  Oatmeal seems to be a notable exception.  Milk and chocolate are both on the list of foods to avoid, but for some reason chocolate milk seems to be all good for me and Scooter.  Scooter also likes peanut butter cup blizzards, chocolate milkshakes, and cherry dipped vanilla softserve cones from Dairy Queen.  Not all at once, though.  We are trying to be healthy.

Irrational Fears
I've been really busy this week.  That's the reason I'm giving for the fact that I went a whole day without noticing any Scooter movement.  I'm sure the movement was there (in the days since, there has been tons of movement, including an adorable case of late night fetal hiccups after one of those trips to Dairy Queen.)  I just didn't notice it, and then I noticed that I hadn't noticed it, and then I panicked a little.  Sean was very calm and encouraging.  He put his mouth right next to the belly and addressed the Scooter directly: "Walter!  This is your daddy.  Knock once if you can hear me!"  We waited for about 30 seconds, and then there was one very distinct bop from inside the womb. The child is not even born yet and already the menfolk are in cahoots.

Anti-climactic revelation of baby's name
As noted above. =)  We are quite excited to meet wee Walter and have started using his name with gleeful abandon.  We've been duly warned by many experienced parents: sometimes the baby arrives and does not look at all like the name you've chosen.  We think we're safe, though, because every baby, male and female, looks like a Walter (ie, like an old man.)  We know it's not a particularly fashionable name, but we love it.  He's named only partly after Mr. Whitman (he of our last pictoral clue) and really only tangentially after WALL-E (the lovable robot).  Mostly he's named after Sean's grandpa, his mom's dad, who Sean never got to meet but who he's always loved.   We're planning on calling him "Walt," aware that we may eventually be overruled by the child himself when it comes to nickname preferences (today, for example, we learned that Hank comes very quickly like a good boy when he hears the word, "Cake.")

Attempts to regain sense of drama with the baby's middle name
So, middle name clues!  As Sean noted, it is another family name. Walt will also share this name with someone who shows up quite a lot in Christian iconography carrying a sword and showing off his receding hair line (he's depicted with a "high forehead" to indicate his great intelligence.)  No pictures this time ... the last one I posted actually had the name written in the lower right hand corner, leading Sean to note that the two of us need an upgrade to our monitors or our glasses.

Amphibious characteristics
I have taken to the water.  I spent my free time at Synod Assembly floating, treading, and jogging around the hotel pool.  I've been to two water aerobics classes at the Y and am looking forward to more.  This swimming thing seems to be nothing but good for me.  I am less dangerously clumsy in the water (still clumsy, just not as dangerous.)  I feel light.  The water seems to take some pressure off my innards, leading to better digestion, and the chlorine seems to be clearing up my awful back acne. (I make pregnancy sound so glamorous and beautiful, don't I?)  I've noticed that it seems to already be helping me get my strength and stamina back after those 3 months of near total immobility.  Water is very, very good.  

Even moar weeping
We went to a piano recital of two young members of the congregation last night.  This was the greatest beginner recital I've ever been to--the kids were all so proud, so happy, so confident and just giddy with the chance to do something they clearly enjoyed. Of course I cried.  You would too if you'd been there to hear Cooper's own arrangement of "Amazing Grace."  We got a pamphlet for the program ... it's a music appreciation curriculum that starts with infants!  We are so doing this.  Also, Baby Swim. 

Wonderful gifts
This doesn't really fit with the "terrifying pregnancy facts" theme, although it is related to the symptom described above.  Also, I am a little terrified that I will be too paralyzed by guilt to sit down and write thank you notes, because I'm already so very far behind.  There's my next vivid dream, I predict.  But oh, the wonderful gifts!  There were ladybug cards from Nancy and booties from the Andersons (who have also lent us the most gorgeous crib you've ever seen.  Their youngest son recommends we rock it by attaching a string to the crib and the other end of the string to my big toe.)  There was the blanket from Audrey you heard about before, and a classic text on "Expectant Motherhood" from Shannon (along with a note which I will always treasure.)  My parents sent us Bunnicula II--descended from the noble line of Bunnicula, my all-time favorite stuffed animal and vampire bunny series protagonist.  I got a book on child rearing from my confirmation co-teacher and an adorable bunny figurine from a member of the women's study group.  And today ... today a box arrived from Texas.

The box came from Arwen.  Like the box from Audrey, you could tell right away that it was good because it was covered with stickers. Inside was something truly wonderful indeed. 

A homemade, hand-crafted fraggle!

Arwen remembered that fraggles played a significant role in the early wooing days of Scooter's parents, and she remembered fondly the enthusiasm she and I shared for Fraggle Rock during our time as teachers together. When we started this blog four years ago, Arwen decided to make us (and Baby Edison-Albright) a fraggle.  We've named him Groovy Fraggle and we LOVE him.  But there's more!  Other handmade items in the box: a doozer (we named him Biscuit,) a radish, a cupcake, and a hat for Sean to wear for comedic effect in the delivery room (you can see the hat in the picture, too.)

Little Walt, you are so loved by so many amazing people. Friends and family  from all over have been preparing for years for your arrival.  If you feel the love, knock once. [Bop!]