Provision

We have been feeding Natalie homemade babyfood, and I have to say, it is a lot more appetizing than the jarred food I've seen.  The brilliant colors and interesting textures make Natalie want to eat it, and when I taste it, it's quite good.  She loves peas, as you can see, but sweet potatoes are her favorite.

Though I haven't blogged much about it, we've been going through quite the transitional time.  I now work 40 hours per week in order to complete my clinical fellowship before I move to Raleigh on July 10.  Finding a babysitter has been quite a trial, but we've finally found an arrangement that we're happy with.  Our sitter, who watches Natalie three days per week, is also moving to Raleigh, so it's wonderful to have a babysitter waiting for us when we get there!

Our house sold a few weeks ago.  What a stressful time.  It is so difficult not to angst during seasons of unknown.  I love how those situations cause me to turn to the Lord, and I feel shame when I don't seek Him as faithfully in the easy times.  There is still a lot to do, but we are so grateful that someone bought our house.  

And just now (literally), we received an offer from a colleague of Taylor's to stay in his house for the month or so that we will be "homeless."  We are able to stay in our home until the middle of June, but we needed to find a place to stay after that time.  So we have a home.  The Lord provides.  We know He does and we were confident He would, but it's just awesome to be part of it.  God is faithful.  

In the midst of everything, I haven't really processed our move.  I am excited, but I know I will miss our friends and our church here in Tucson.  It will be a closing to the first chapter of our married life, with so many new things that we discovered together.  One thing I am really looking forward to about moving to Raleigh is that I will be home with Natalie quite a bit more than I am now.  No more working full time for this mama.  It's the worst, when you have such a precious sweet pea at home!  And I even really like my job - it's wonderful - and I still prefer to be with Natalie.

When our babysitter situation got crazy, we considered daycare briefly for Natalie.  While I don't fault ANYONE that decides that daycare is right for them, we just couldn't do it.  I can see lots of benefits of daycare for toddlers, but not for infants.  They're so needy, and they need lots of individualized attention.  Natalie especially thrives off of dynamic situations, and I couldn't bear to think that she could be crying alone in daycare while the workers attended to others' more pressing needs.  Taylor's sister Heather mentioned at Easter that finding good childcare is so stressful, and she's right.  It's more stressful than anything else, because you have so much emotionally invested in it.  You feel guilty if you have a good sitter, simply because it's not you, and you feel horribly guilty if you don't feel completely at peace with the situation.  I'm so glad we have that situation taken care of.  In May, when our sitter leaves for Raleigh, we will have several recent grads of the Speech-Pathology program watching Natalie.  What a deal - speech pathologists as babysitters!

 Just a little reading.