My Precious

He’s cute, if I may say so myself! Jubilant Dean Lattin. Seven pounds, fifteen ounces. And he’s all mine and I’m the only person in the world that he really cares about right now. That’s an amazing feeling. Okay, so he tolerates his dad as well—but I still like being his favorite person.

People like to say he smiles. It’s pretty adorable when he does but I’m strongly suspicious that his smiles are directly related to condition of his stomach. Grimaces, Dru calls them. Smiles or no, his facial expressions are fun. Even at one and a half weeks he has his own little personality.

Dru is eyeing the diaper stack that I accumulated from my baby shower with growing concern. He speaks of rationing diapers to three a day. I’m sure he’s secretly wishing that cloth diapers were an option. I’m so thankful to his mother-in-law for assuring him that they weren’t.

Nursing has gone really, really well for this first time mom and I just have to thank God. I did take a little bit to get the hang of it and I can’t say that everything is totally comfortable, but I’m not in pain, the baby’s healthy and getting his fill. So I have to thank God for that—and my mom; for praying.

Everything about my daily life has changed it seems. All of the changes are good, so far as I can tell. One of the biggest changes is myself. Not only is my tummy back down to almost the size it would normally be, I feel good about myself. I was afraid I’d never feel beautiful again, no matter how much Dru told me I was. I wondered if romance would ever be fun again. But everything’s much better now that Jubilant is here. Even my food tastes good again—I didn’t quite believe my mom when she told me it would again as soon as the baby was born. In fact, it’s like someone turned the light on in side of me. I think I like being a woman after all.

So I’m a mom in Thailand—far, far away from my home country and family. I miss home and family. Missing comes and goes. There are times when I am pretty sure I don’t want to live in Thailand anymore. But the other day, when I was thinking these sort of thoughts something suddenly occurred to me. I’d much rather be missing my family than my Dru! Every now and then I try to think through the scenario of what in the world I would have done if Dru'd never asked to marry me, how he'd have gone far, far away without me, and how I'd have ended up as a spinster forever—only usually my imagination can think of some creative way to hook us up, even if it is rather far fetched.

So I’m very happy right now. Happy for being able to feel like me again and happy for the two wonderful men in my life. Happy in the adventure my life seems to be turning out to be. Happy because God is good.