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Happy Mothers Day…

On the very early morning of December 27th 2007, my wife became more than herself.  She became a mother.

She worked, and toiled to do everything she could to ensure that this new life dependent on her had everything he needed.  Her self interest and importance became a secondary drive towards that of the new calling she found in Will.  Even leaving her job to become a stay at home mom to care for this new addition to our family.

Then again, on a very early morning of Sept 7th 2010, my wife moved forward to become a mother to yet another child.  Our sweet little baby girl Maggie.  Our daughter however had special needs; and my wife, the mother, heeded the heightened call and began working continually with her to try and better her.  Reaching to a place in her heart, and physical being to produce an endurance that surpasses my understanding.  To show interest to our son, to let him know that he too is loved, and that his little sister was a joy, not a burden to take his mommy from him.

When we thought we could take no more, that our line was running short; this beautiful woman found she was pregnant with our next child.  Born Sept 17th 2012 was Jake, and she again found a level of endurance and ability that makes me feel as if I’m hopelessly left behind as she runs this marathon.  Catching but a glimpse of her dust as she carries on in this race.  Carrying the burdens of bottles, therapies, dinners, diapers, discipline, she shows a compassion and a heart that could only be found in a mother.

Amanda, you are amazing.  I’m thankful to God that I have a wife like you, and am ever impressed with you, the mother.

I love you.

Farewell friend…

So last week we lost our second dog to cancer. My corgi Keenan who’s been with us for 9 years has left us. I’ve not really been able to talk or write about it but my wife has done a good job with it here: http://thebelcherfamily4.blogspot.com/2013/03/farewell-friend.html?m=0

I loved that dog, and am thankful for the time we had with him. He’s been with us a relatively long time.

There is definitely something missing in our home now.

Getting fitted…

image

Little feet, marked for measurements, and a smiley face. Round one of my little girls corrective equipment collection begins.

Tragedy…

I had thought to have more time to blog and post things of interest now that the holidays had passed and the core portion of my logon framework was completed but something(s) unexpected happened.  We arrived home and decided to go out to eat dinner when my wife received a phone call that her closest cousin’s 7 month old son had died suddenly at the sitters.  This passing was followed by the news of 3 others close to me; 1 co worker and 2 old family friends.

There is hope in their passing that I will see them all again.  With that I find peace, but continue to pray for their loved ones and those who feel the immediate loss in their life.  One of my favorite analogies of death is that, it’s like losing an arm.  Things will never be the same, but eventually you learn to live without it. 

To those learning how to live again, my heart goes out to you, sincerely.

Update…

So, in the midst of the holiday season I’ve not had a lot of time to blog, if I’ve had time it’s been spent either coding or playing one of the many games that have been coming out this holiday season.

This past week I took some time off to get away with my wife and and spend some time alone while my mother in law watched the kids.  I can’t begin to express how amazing it was to just relax with my wife and enjoy each others company.  To sit and talk, uninterrupted about something other than the work or kids.  We also went to see courageous while we were together.  We really enjoyed it, and it was nice to see a movie that we both could enjoy that covered values that we agree with.

It was especially nice considering the time was intended for us to grow together and reconnect.  This offered us that opportunity, and we have our in laws to thank for that.  Of course all good things must come to an end and this was no different.  We then spent the rest of the week with family, enjoying ourselves, but wearing ourselves out as well.  Games, kids, food, sickness, and well, family (and all that implies).

As far as gaming is concerned I’ve been through and am currently playing: battlefield 3 (pc), Assassin’s Creed Revelations (ps3), Resistance 3 (ps3), gears of war 3 (360), Uncharted 3 (ps3), Skyrim (pc), and swtor beta (pc).  I’ve so far, omitted batman arkham city and modern warfare 3.  I’ll be throwing some more technical blogs up later I’d suspect, especially involving some things I have going building an sccm health check script that’s fairly comprehensive yet light weight.  We’ll see how that goes.

For those wondering, I still don’t have any news on my current job situation.  So until I’m told otherwise, I am employed.  I suppose I’ll make it through my holiday’s with it from the way things look, but you never know.  Thanks for those praying for me during this time, they are always welcome.

That’s about it for my update, until next time, have a happy holiday.

So it’s been a while…

Since I posted anything personal on here that a non-techie person could read.  I’ve had a lot of things going on to me, and around me; so it’s about time to spill it.

Let’s start with some of the good things going on.

Maggie.

She’s getting stronger, and her confidence is growing.

2011-11-07_18-14-42_776[1]

Most people may not realize how huge seeing her sitting up on her own in a shopping cart is to her mother and I.  Is she behind?  Sure, but she’s making progress, and for that we are thankful.

Now, she’s also becoming more and more aware of things she wants to do and realizing she can’t do them (so it would seem) and she gets increasingly more frustrated and that breaks our hearts to witness.  So moments like this where she’s sitting like a big girl, elicits a very proud and triumphant smile from her beautiful little face.

Will.

He keeps growing, and he’s developing such a strong sense of right and wrong.  He’s also got a great sense of humor and a huge heart.

2011-10-27_18-06-51_374[1]

He’s as high energy as ever, and continues to push boundaries though mind you.  Asking questions and wearing his emotions on his sleeve.  He’ll be going into speech therapy soon, more for conversational reasons than his inability to pronounce single words.  With his high energy comes his blurt speaking as I like to think of it.  Essentially he has a million thoughts in his head and his mouth will only go so fast to convey that message.  With all that being said though, every day he does something to test my ire, yet cause an absolute swelling of pride over him.  A 3 year old in true form (soon to be 4, which he is certainly excited about).

Amanda.

There isn’t really a whole lot to say that she doesn’t say on her own blog, but we continue to grow together as well.  Everyday, a day at a time.  She’s my earthly joy, and the one I seek for guidance and approval.  Aside from being an amazing mother and wife, she’s taken to doing a lot of crafts lately (sewing, embroidery, and scrapbooking), lately of course being for the past year or so.  It continues to amaze me the level of quality stuff she’s been making.  I’m being serious here, it’s really neat to see the way she takes such obscure random things, visualizes something, then in a few hours or a few days has this absolutely impressive piece of work.

I also love the fact she has a hobby now.  I’ve always kind of been one to be into something.  Coding, studying obscure subjects, collecting anime, playing video games, tweaking hardware, building networks, etc.  Amanda has always had things she’s into I guess, but never really had the time/money/equipment/support/motivation to follow through on it but now she has and it excites me to see her pouring herself into it.

Me.

So the current situation for me is pretty, interesting.  My company was bought out a few weeks ago in what is (admittedly) a great deal for the shareholders.  The only kicker is, it could be bad for me, as in lose my job bad.  I’m not presently assuming that, but the reality is there.  I can’t really disclose any more then that at this time, but it’s a matter of concern.

I’m not really sure what else there is to say, I’ve been coding a lot, studying a lot, and (with all the games coming out) gaming a lot.  There never seems to be a shortage of things that need to be done, or things I want done.  Par for the course I guess, and that sums up what’s been going on lately. 

If only things were always this simple.

Say whaaaaaat…..?

So our little Maggie moo has had to get splints for her hands to wear while she sleeps.  The purpose?  To encourage her to keep her hands open more often.  The result?  She won’t sleep, at all.  She’s been making a lot of progress and has been very responsive to her physical and occupational therapy, but she has clearly drawn a little baby line in the sand on this one.

On the bright side, it does appear she’s keeping her hands open more, so they are working.  They are also helping us all suffer from sleep deprivation.  Will, having returned from a previous week with Grandma’s (the week before my lan party which was on the 3rd) has finally started to normalize from the spoiling that went down.  I love when he gets to spend time with his extended family, but I loathe trying to get him back into alignment afterwards.  It’s usually not accomplished without me being a iron wall, which no parent truly wants to be with their child.  Poor Amanda hasn’t been as lucky in terms of his best behavior in my absence.  It appears that we are at the point of: “Just wait till your daddy gets home”.  He is our little man though and we love him, he’s tons of fun, full of humor.  Right now with Maggie’s therapy, we are certain he is feeling a bit neglected.  It’s hard to explain to a 3 year old why their sibling is getting more attention than them.

Pray for them both and my wife as well.  These are trying, stressful times for all of us.  There are days where we feel absolutely broken.  We are still blessed, but the world has a way of blinding you from that.

In other news, I’m officially doing OSD testing and building as of the past two weeks.  So another SCCM feature/function/tech that I’ve had the chance to use in an applicable fashion.  So far I’m enjoying it, the initial building and testing though is very time consuming.

I’ve mostly been toying with MDT then applying what I see/learn from there to my SCCM builds.  It’s interesting, but I will assume it becomes less intense after I configure a baseline.

I’m also down to (started at 178) 164 lbs now and down 2 pants sizes from my workout regiment and dietary change. 

That’s all I have for now, for this disjointed blog post.

This is the day…

So my wife and I have been waiting for today.

No, it’s not a holiday or anything special like that.  Today is the day that we take our sweet little girl Maggie to her occupational therapist for review.  This is the day we find out the extent of her trauma from birth.  This is the day that we cling to God the tightest.

We are fearful of what we might find out, we are excited about being taught how best to work with our beautiful little girl.  In the end, God is enough.  We pray that what afflicts our daughter is manageable.  That her quality of life won’t be jeopardized by the news we find out today.  We know that all things to the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.  We know that His grace is sufficient.  We know that he is our strength and our portion forever.  So even though our flesh or our children or our jobs or our world may fail us.  He will not.

God will be glorified in no matter what comes from today, I pray that our daughter is healed for his name sake.  That we might proclaim his miraculous work through our daughter.

If you are reading this, please take some time today to pray for us. 

This is so much bigger than us.

 

-Daniel, a loving father

The joy of a Husband and a Father

Recently we were told to take our 7 month old daughter Maggie to be reviewed for early intervention. She qualified! In all areas of development! It was like being hit with a sack of rocks. More so for my wife even than I. Our daughter nearly died during child birth, and was without decent oxygen and blood circulation before they successfully removed her. So to some end we knew that this might be possible, and we of course knew she was behind or not quite right on some of her milestones. However, having it there in your face is just overwhelming.

Fortunately through the state of Alabama and members of our faith family who are occupational therapists, we gathered a lot of great information and had a review conducted in our home for placement almost immediately after the initial review. We were told hand in hand is the one of the top early intervention places here in Alabama so we sought placement with them.

We trust God for everything.  He who promised is faithful, and if he has his eye on the sparrow we knew that he had his hands firmly rested on us.  That being said, Amanda and I spent a lot of time discussing in depth our Savior and then I placed the infamous question on my wife. 

“What if God is most glorified in our daughter being mentally handicapped?”

 

The Joy of a Husband {

I take my role as Spiritual leader in this house very seriously.  This was a time of necessary spiritual growth, and I was lead to, well, lead.  However, this was a time when I wanted to give my life up for my wife so she wouldn’t feel that pain of facing this realization!  We can’t place our joy in anything that is not eternal; our children included.  They are a blessing, and a source of joy, but inevitably we must fix ourselves firmly on our Savior. 

Though my flesh and my heart may fail me, the Lord is my strength and my portion forever.

It was a night of tears, prayer, and anguish.  Amanda continues to amaze me, she recognized immediately that she was more interested in the hand of blessing and not the hand itself.  The most amazing part of that to me, was she was MORE upset that she wasn’t loving God as she realized she should.

                   Wow. 

I continued to pray over my wife and daughter as she prayed for herself and for Maggie.

3 Amazing things happened:

  1. The following day our sister in law sent an email pouring her heart out to Amanda essentially discussing the exact same thing we had discussed in private the night before.  Also saying that she had felt compelled to pray for complete healing for Maggie, and was praying for our peace.  It’s worth mentioning no outward signs have been given regarding the emotional struggles my wife has been dealing with. –thank you Spirit-
  2. A few minutes after our prayer request went out for Maggie to be accepted into Hand in Hand, another email came in to let us know we were accepted into Hand in Hand.
  3. My wife felt the Spirit move and found Joy in seeing God at work in her life.  The word was alive and she now understands what it means to find Joy in God.  This of course, to me, is the greatest.
    The greatest Joy of a teacher is when their students can grasp it.  More importantly when that student is your best friend and greatest earthly love.  I’m so thankful God allowed me to be a part of that growth.

    } dnabsuH a fo yoJ ehT

So now where are we on Maggie? Hey, don’t you have a son too?

The Joy of a Father {

During the giggly bear’s evaluation (Maggie), they had marked her off for quite a few things.  Some of the more specific ones was not even attempting to mimic speech, using her hands around the midline, bring things to her mouth, lift up on her hands while on her belly.

So guess what she’s started doing?  Yea, and today while I was at work she apparently was using a sippy cup.. 

sippy cup

We aren’t where we need to be yet, but I have faith we will get there.

Now for my road dog (Will).  Will has a habit of grabbing phones and having long fake conversations with people.  Lately he’s become increasingly more upset that I go to work everyday.

“Why you go work air-day daddy?” “You go work day daddy?” “No, you no go work day daddy.”

It’s sweet, but it’s become something that grates on my nerves constantly explaining myself for keeping the lights on to my kid…

Anyway, today Amanda gave me a heads up that he was pretending to talk to me on her cell phone over messenger.  So I stopped what I was doing and dialed her cell phone and had a (surprisingly) lengthy conversation (well for a 3 year old) on the phone.  As I hung up the phone and I heard:

“Ok, I go now, I love you very much daddy”

… there aren’t words.  Seeing my son grow, seeing his love, his personality, and now starting to see signs of his grasping of the Gospel….. As we were pulling into the neighborhood the other night from who knows where hearing that little voice:

“Mommy, Jesus loves you, and he loves me too.”

                   ….. The prayer that my son will one day be my brother ….

talkin to daddy

…….We’re working on it!

} rethaF a fo yoJ