Beauty in the Mess ~ Edition 04.08.15

It’s 76 degrees, I’m sitting on my sunporch, and regardless of the fact that I’ve been awake since 4:50AM, I think that right now is the perfect time to be counting my blessings and looking for beauty.

The past few weeks have been incredibly wonderful. Ezra’s behavior has made astounding improvements, hubby is doing well at his job, second trimester is treating me very well, the weather has been beautiful, and we are all so excited about the happy changes we are going through.

Last week, Ezra graduated from inpatient behavioral therapy. (See also: Believing in my son {an update} and Moving beyond the ADHD diagnosis)

I celebrated all of Ezra’s accomplishments (and our new baby) by wearing the dress I wore to Ezra’s baby shower! 

That day we celebrated his graduation both at school and with private party with family, during which we also found out as a family that we are having another baby BOY!

We are all so very thrilled about the baby boy. We all wanted a boy and were hoping for it, so now we are just settling into enjoying thoughts of having another son in our family.

Ezra started at a new school this week, in a special needs preschool class. He will finish out this school year there. So far he’s doing well.

Here’s some more beauty from the past few weeks:

There is beauty in first-thing-in-the-morning sleepy hugs with daddy:

Beauty in major fine-motor and writing improvements:

There is beauty in celebrating seven years of marriage by staying home as a family being lazy and watching Netflix. (See also: How we’ve made it through seven years of marriage)

There is beauty in Ezra getting to ride the bus with Daddy to work, a reward for several days of progress and good behavior in therapy:

There is beauty in watching Ezra conquer his fears. We went to this park a few weeks ago and he froze at the top of this ladder and came back down. Two weeks later when we went back, he made it all the way to the top!

There is beauty in sending him downstairs to play and him coming back with a “birthday candle” for me.

There is beauty in this face. Enough said.

There is beauty in having Russ take the day off of work and then heading to the hospital before school, just to explore. Then having nice ambulance drivers give Ezra a tour of the rig.

There is beauty in having this child, who has his entire life avoided playdough because he didn’t like how it felt, all of the sudden decide it’s the best thing ever!

There is beauty in having him help me make crackers. I’ll admit, he did most of the work this time. Brings back memories to cookie baking disasters and has me breathing thanks that things are soooooo much easier now.

There is beauty in taking his trike to the park and riding around on it, something he couldn’t do a year ago:

There is beauty in telling him in no uncertain terms NOT to jump in that puddle because if he did he wasn’t going to the kid’s museum and having him make a good choice. But he had to think about it long and hard first!

There is beauty in family yardwork day with all-hands-on-deck participation:

And there is beauty in having a family coma after family yardwork day, because we were exhausted:

There is beauty in an impromptu family trip to Raleigh to visit the Marbles Kids Museum, during which we all had a fairly enjoyable time, despite the crowds.

There is beauty in having a WONDERFUL Good Friday with Ezra that included a long-overdue playdate with friends, one scraped knee, THREE errands (during which I only had to correct his behavior once), a new “sandbox,” and lunch on the porch in the gorgeous spring weather. It was absolute perfection.

And then the beauty continued as the next day we drove up to the mountains to spend the day with the in-laws and cousins. Ezra made it through a 2-hour-drive there, an Easter egg hunt, lunch at a restaurant, some serious hiking, 20 minutes of a bird lecture (during which he sat still, stayed in his chair, whispered, and raised his hand to ask intelligent questions – as well as to tell the staff he liked it when the bird pooped), a nap in a strange bed, dinner at a restaurant as well, and then a 2-hour-drive home! We were all continually astounded with how well he did all day long with minimum interventions!

Which brings us to this week. In which we walk to and from our new school every day, which is great regulation for Ezra and great exercise (about 4.5 miles total) for mom and baby every day!

Ezra came home from his first day pretty tired and not too talkative. I forgot to take another first-day-of-school picture, so these will have to do!

I’m so thankful for all of our blessings, especially over these past few weeks.