Leaf by Elizabeth

Just a month and a half (or so) until we meet our new little one. I thought I'd share this poem that I came across again recently; a friend had sent it to us before our first daughter was born. I especially love the ending. Upon Seeing an Ultrasound Photo of an Unborn Child by Thomas Lux Tadpole, it's not time yet to nag you about college (though I have some thoughts on that), baseball (ditto), or abstract principles. Enjoy your delicious, soupy womb-warmth, do some rolls and saults (it'll be too crowded soon), delight in your early dreams -- which no one will attempt to analyze. For now: may your toes blossom, your fingers lengthen, your sexual organs grow (too soon to tell which yet) sensitive, your teeth form their buds in their forming jawbone, your already booming heart expand (literally now, metaphorically later); O your spine, eyebrows, nape, knees, fibulae, lungs, lips... But your soul, dear child: I don't see it here, when does that come in, whence? Perhaps God

My deep thoughts are running a bit sparse lately, coming off of a 2-week cold and dealing with the new boundary-testing phase of our almost 3-yr old (we've been getting lots of shouted "no!"s with stamped feet, protests about every step of the bedtime routine, and I think she's laid down on the floor in almost every public place imaginable- bathroom, church lobby, library, parking lot, etc). So I will share with you some leaf pictures I took this past month. The trees are mostly bare already, but for a few weeks there was glorious color everywhere you turned.