i had a dream last night that jeremy, joseph, and i were on the run. i'm not really sure why, but i think it had something to do with the protestant reformation. i do know that at one point in the dream, jeremy discarded joseph's carseat off the side of a mountain, said we wouldn't need it anymore where we were going, and for the rest of the dream had joseph on his back in the moby wrap. we ended up in colorado.

joseph had 5, count 'em, 5 dirty diapers this morning. like before noon. seriously. three were poopy. annnnd they were all cloth diapers! it's working out pretty well so far. my studfest husband installed a sprayer that's attached to our toilet to wash them off. and it feels good to not be throwing something away each time the little kicky boy is up on the changing table. okay, i promise.. that's the last i talk about the diapers. it's just that lately when people ask me how i'm doing/what's going on with me, i'm really tempted to tell them about cloth diapers. sometimes i give in. they're just really cute and really cheap (in the long run, of course), and just so environmentally friendly. okay, now that was officially the last time i talk about the diapers.

in other news, i added some super masculine decor to jbl's nursery. he's been taking naps in there, so i figured some manliness could help out that effort a bit. he now has a wall that is adorned by a clothesline (i love clothesline decor. a lot.) his royals hat, a royals world series championship penant, some blue baby shoes, and a movie poster from the bourne ultimatum. in this poster, jason bourne may or may not be carrying a pretty dangerous looking gun. we'll just have to explain it to joseph when he's older. i wonder how it will go explaining his middle name to him when he's not old enough to see any of the movies yet..

yes. yes, my life does in fact revolve around my son.

i have some other posts i'm working on but i'm just being too much of a perfectionist to publish them just yet. one is on personal branding and my over-developed thoughts on how we portray/define/brand ourselves in this age. the other is on coffee and how addicted i've become to it. but i draw in references to a tree grows in brooklyn so, i mean, it's not just about coffee.

in other news,

we had some friends over for dinner tonight. thai chicken pizza. two of the friends were my sisters, who happen to be friends as well. the others were dustin and ben. i heard once that dustin's first words when he met ben were "what in the world?" which seems appropriate. these four fine folks are some of our best friends and also huge supporters of jeremy's work with karis. so we made them some pizza and hung out around the kitchen table. it was really fun.

we have purchased a hearty supply of cloth diapers and will begin that adventure when they are delivered this week. gulp. :) no, it will be good, for sure. and a lot less money/landfill space in the long run. i've been meaning to order the diapers for weeks now, and we finally sat down and picked out all of the colors and quantities and shipping preferences and such on saturday. it's pretty hilarious to make a purchase of this sort and at the end of the whole purchasing process realize that the end result is that we now have cloth contraptions with which to catch and contain joseph's poop. you know? i guess it has to happen somehow so it might as well be adorable versatile invincible bumgenius diapers.

i can always tell when i haven't had enough jessie-time when painting my nails seems like a really big deal. except i guess it always does. and sometimes i expect people to notice the ever-so-light pink shade that now graces my fingertips as if it's a really big deal. similarly, i trimmed my bangs on saturday, just about an inch or so, and expected somebody to say something until i realized that i have side bangs and they are always behind my ear. but seriously, i almost said "guess what? i trimmed my bangs.." to amy and kate when i met up with them that morning. but i didn't.

i did, however, tell jeremy about trimming my bangs. poor guy. i think i'm going to make the tagline for this blog "where my words go when jeremy has used all of his." lots of my posts are actually thoughts that i begin to develop during dinner conversation with my sweet husband and then, to his knowledge, complete within the confines of that conversation. except then i end up with these unpublished posts that are the remaining thoughts that go beyond the socially acceptable length of "so i was thinking.." talk that i actually have on the subject we've only partly discussed.

also,

i think i'm going to start reading sports illustrated as an investment into knowing my husband better. and because i just found out last night that michael jordan, although appearing in space jam as what one would describe as "a nice dad," is in fact quite arrogant. i've thought for the past 15 or so years that he was a genuinely nice guy who impressively has not let being the best basketball player in the world go to his head. oops.

pursuing joy in love

as i read the love chapter of desiring God with baby joseph bourne asleep on my chest, i found myself thinking about, of all things, my motor scooter boots.

jeremy and i were in chicago for a long weekend away, remaining true to our one week of vacation with family and one week of vacation by ourselves rule. we trudged through rain turning into snow and landed in the j.crew on michigan avenue.

i have many times eyed the wellies featured in each j.crew catalogue that arrives at/invades my home, and i have many times known with certainty that to spend $60 on a pair of rainboots is not something i will/am able to do.

it must have been one of their rare sale days. plaid wellies for $29.99. solid-colored wellies for $29.99.

blue with pink motor scooters all over them? $15.99.

i asked the sales attendant to help me check the size on the boots just out of reach on a high shelf. she frowned and went to get a ladder.

a nearby father with his daughter, who was also in the market for boots, reached up and handed them to me while frowns-a-lot fetched the ladder, noting that they were in fact the size 8 i was looking for. and, i discovered, with the additional discount taken at the register, $12.

beautiful.

i wore my motor scooter boots the rest of the time we were in chicago, noting with great satisfaction that i could walk through every puddle without fear as their waterproof motor scooter glory reached all the way up to my knees. my motor scooter boots quickly became one of my favorite possessions, if not my favorite, and appropriately, the story i told about our trip to chicago was of finding motor scooter boots at j.crew for $12.

i should note here that jeremy had a similar experience with a dunkin' donuts to-go mug that cost only $1.99, including the coffee that filled it, and looks so remarkably similar to a disposable paper to-go cup, that he has more than once had to rescue it from the karis trash bag as it was being taken out to the dumpster.

so we like these items. a lot.

my thoughts this morning stopped on the boots as i recalled this past Christmas and my family's gift exchange. a few years ago, my family began drawing names. last year, i drew my sister, rachel. as i pondered what to give my sweet, sixteen-year-old sister, i thought of my motor scooter boots. i wanted so badly to show rachel how much i love her in Christmas gift form, and as i gazed with loving eyes upon my motor scooter boots, i knew what to give her.

i didn't want to just give rachel something that i thought she would like. i wanted to give her the fullness of joy i found in my motor scooter boots - the joy of spotting them on the top shelf, the joy of having them be the perfect size, the joy of having them be $12 marked down from $15.99 marked down from $60, the joy of wearing them through the streets of chicago in vacation-mode happiness, the joy of the tiny pink motor scooters all over them - all of this i wanted to give to rachel. with a high school musical-inspired puppet show video to go along with it.

my exact reasoning was something to the extent of: "i want to give rachel the thing that makes me the happiest. i find so much joy in these boots that the best way for me to show her how much i love her is to give them to her and hope that she too will share in this joy and therefore know my love."

so i found some wellies for rachel. green boots with blue polka dots. not exactly motor scooters and not exactly $12, but still the idea was there, the joy was there, and i was giving them to her.

she loved them. i loved watching her open them. the video was kind of weird.

as i pondered pursuing joy in love, it led me to pursuing joy in giving boots, and how really, these two concepts (with the exception of boots not exactly being the same thing as love) are quite similar. at the risk of coming to a rushed conclusion as to how similar they actually are, i will leave my thoughts at this for today.

more to come.

love.

my, how the time flies

part of me [a lot of me] wishes that i would stop hearing:

"it goes by so fast.." sighhhh

i mean, i know it goes by fast, so fast, you know? but what if, just if, we actually have an idea that it's supposed to go by slower than it does and our remarking at how quickly time goes by is actually our rebellion against changing times and how quickly they seem to occur? what if it doesn't actually go by so fast? and what is it? okay, i'll give you that. it is time. i mean, obviously.

maybe this is just a new mother panicking because i found myself taking in all of the tiny bundle that joseph is as he slept, knowing that it is going to go by so fast, and at the same time knowing that i don't really want it to stay the same as it is forever but what if sometimes i do just a little?

when jeremy and i started dating, i was pretty concerned by the amount that i liked him [dare i say loved?] and how, given a lifetime of say, 85 years, i wasn't sure i was going to have enough time with him. i'm still not. and now we've added this perfect little boy to our lives - am i going to have enough time with him? to what extent will the speed at which this time goes by affect if it's enough? it seems that if i could just stop thinking about how "fast it goes," perhaps i'd be more likely to allow joseph to have some joseph-time to himself without his mom always around.

but he's just so stinking cute and i really do love how he curls up on his left side and clasps his hands together under his chin while he sleeps.

sigh.

not that big of a sigh as in sighhhh, where did the time go? but more just sigh.


in other news, i purchased two stems of baby's breath in my first non-social outing with joseph to hyvee. and now i have glass jars with baby's breath in my home and they look so pretty.

also, melissa and dustin are driving to florida and were going to borrow our accord for the amazing gas mileage we boasted about after driving to gulf shores and back. they left this morning only to find themselves about 20 minutes east on i-70 in a vehicle with amazing gas mileage but an only sometimes reliable stereo system. i guess in our enthusiasm over stopping just twice to fill 'er up, we neglected to mention that you've got to be driving for a minimum of an hour to get the cd player to warm up and even then, the chances of a cd playing are slim. and stereo warm up time starts over no matter how quickly you were in and out of the gas station. so they drove back and switched cars. i love that.

my birth story includes father of the bride part II

it's true.

two and a half weeks from the day baby joseph was born, i am very much wanting to record every detail of his arrival. i'm working on a new blog - i suppose linking it here is unveiling it, huh? i think i'll post the birth story there as it's pretty essential to the new stage of life i'm in.

jeremy is making egg sandwiches for lunch.
after somewhat of a tough night with the little guy, actually just a tough morning i suppose (little jbl was constipated and making grunts that are surprisingly loud considering his size 6 from until around 10 am), my sweet husband took our babe and read aloud from the word to him while i slept.
i awoke around 10 to jeremy and babe both in different shirts (i guess joseph figured things out on himself and his dad) and enjoyed a morning of cereal, a banana, psalm 107, and coffee with 2% milk and sugar in my favorite teal mug with japanese flowers while from the desk area i heard jeremy and joseph discussing missions in south korea: "hey, are you falling asleep? i know this is a lot for you to be hearing.. i know it's hard to hear about all of this, but we gotta fight for these people.."
the egg sandwiches smell really good.
joseph is swaddled and sleeping off the morning's stress.

i really like this day.

joseph bourne linneman

the babe is here.













joseph bourne linneman.

and here's a picture of grandma wolf for good measure:

aren't more babes supposed to be born when there's a full moon?
oh, i hope... :)