Resurrection Season

I’d like to thank everyone for their prayers and for their kindness to me and to our family over the past several months. I know I’ve made it super hard to get in contact after yeeeears of comment moderation burnout, so, I’m sorry about that but some of you managed to find your way to me despite my internet reclusively, you intrepid readers, you.

Now, I don’t know how many people still read typed-out text on the internet these days. I know that I personally spend a disproportionate amount of time watching short videos of hot tiktok moms doing their hair and makeup and organizing their perfect refrigerators contrasted with long form reading, but that’s a character defect I’m looking to correct as the seasons change and I emerge from a seemingly eternal winter/lent/darkness.

The biggest source of sunshine, apart from daylight savings, has been this little lady, whose conception, pregnancy, and birth were steeped in anxiety, suffering, uncertainty, and pain. But now she’s here, and she is so worth it.

Meet Elizabeth Colette. Named for St. Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, cousin of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, and St. Colette of Corbi, whose amazing story wove its way into our daughter’s untimely arrival and convinced us we needed to honor her in lieu of a previously planned middle name.

She is our darling consolation, our little ray of light after a long, dark winter. And she is the sweetest little thing, born at 5 lbs, 3 oz at 33 weeks and some change, though today clocking in at almost 6 weeks 9 weeks old and a robust 7 pounds. 9 pounds!

And gosh is it hard to write these days with 7 kids running around.

Though, truth be told, gentle reader, we put the older 4 back in school full time back when we were expecting to be juggling two newborns, and the little 2 are doing two-day-a-week full day preschool, and in divinely-inspired retrospect, I am not sorry about it one bit. But that’s another tale for another day. As is Miss Elizabeth’s somewhat harrowing birth and NICU tale.

So for now, please be content with this highlight reel of baby pictures from her first few weeks, and a promise that I’m finally feeling like writing again, so plan to hear from me more often than every 90-120 days.