A Day for Giving Thanks

The Official  Maycock Family Thanksgiving Portrait, November 25, 2012

For awhile now Thanksgiving has been less about the specific day and more about the people we share the time with.

For the first two years after we moved back to the States from Saipan, we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Paez tribe on the fourth Friday in November, rather than on Thursday because our flight arrived in Portland on Thanksgiving day. Last year we enjoyed two celebrations, a quiet one here at home with Barbara's parents, and then our traditional celebration with the Paez family the week after Christmas in Oregon.

The Paez family mourns our absence at Thanksgiving this year.  Carol sent me  this photo on Thanksgiving day with the caption "Thanksgiving without the Maycocks."  We missed them too.  Next year! (In the mean time we're grateful to have Carol, at least coming to spend a few days with us the week after Thanksgiving)

This year we didn't even bother to make any concrete Thanksgiving plan.  There was no long menu of foods to cook, no guest list to plan, no flights to catch or drives to make.  As in previous years our approach to Thanksgiving had everything to do with the people--or in this case the person--we shared the day with rather than the day of the holiday and the food we ate.

Thanksgiving day 2012 began at the hospital and ended here at home.  The menu was supposed to be chicken pot pie but it turns out I didn't have any shortening so we scrounged together some left overs instead.  But none of that mattered.  What mattered was the person for whom we gladly turned our holiday plans upside down, our newborn son, Ezra.  He was born just two days before Thanksgiving and in his arrival we have much to give thanks for.

Next year, I don't know where, when, or how we'll celebrate Thanksgiving.  But one thing I know for sure:  It will be the people, including a special one-year old, who will make the day special.

A friend of mine recently announced on Facebook that her daughter had been wishing folks a "Happy Birth Giving" and while for most it might have been a cute misstatement, for us it was a very apt description of a our experience, a happy birth giving indeed!  Thanks to the epidural, Ezra's entrance into the world was virtually pain free from start to finish.

A new day, a new chapter in our life.  Sunrise on the first full day of Ezra's life.  I took this photo from Barbara's hospital room, early Wednesday morning, November 21 , the day before Thanksgiving.

The Feller meets his little brother for the first time.

With the grandparents

Ezra Maycock, the focus of this year's Thanksgiving celebration.

Welcome Ezra Thomson Maycock

Ezra made his entrance into the world on Tuesday night, November 20 at 9:38 P.M.  He was almost exactly the same weight as his older brother at birth: 6 lbs, 15 oz.

Here he is, the newest addition to the Maycock family.  Elijah's little brother has wasted no time in carving a special place in our hearts.  We praise God for this wonderful gift of a healthy, baby boy.

More on this special Thanksgiving baby soon to come!

The First Day of The Rest of Our Lives

Today a family of three; tomorrow a family of four

Tomorrow, once again my world shifts forever.  They say that having a child changes your life, and I can attest that's true.  But what I suspect is also true is that having a second child changes your life all over again.

It wasn't like this with Elijah.  He came like a thief in the night and there was no time to prepare.  Parenthood was thrust upon us three weeks early, and we hit the ground running, making it up as we went along.

But this time, we've had the chance to prepare: physically--Bab's bag has been in the trunk of the car for the past four weeks, the crib is set up, our baby's clothes, diapers, wipes, are neatly stored and ready for use. Mentally, we, at least in theory know what to expect.  The sleeplessness, the diaper changes, we've been through it all before so we should be ready (though I'm amazed by how much I can no longer remember about those early days with Elijah).  But emotionally. . .I'm not sure how to be ready.  I don't know that I can truly be prepared for a change of this magnitude.

What I've realized with the imminent arrival of our second son is that this is really the beginning of what will, by the grace and mercy of God, be the "normal" for our family for the rest of our lives.  The eleven years Babs and I had together, and the four years with the just the three of us will be dwarfed by the decades to come as a family of four.  It feels like such a huge change for our oldest, but I realize that for him he will barely remember a life without his brother, and his mother and I will remember these past four years as a brief time before our family settled into the form that we know it.

Tomorrow, my lovely, strong, wife, the mother of my children and my best friend will go to work to bring our son into the world, and I'll be by her side.  And with us the One who has been with us all along.  My prayer for both my boys is that what has been true for me will be true for them too:

"For Thou Art my hope, O Lord God, Thou art my confidence from my youth. By Thee, I have been sustained from my birth.  Thou art He who took me from my mother's womb; My praise is continually of Thee"
               --Psalms 71:5-6