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Today, my friend is going to whoop it up with her family in preparation for baby #2.

There will soon be a party, well-loved people, presents, and – most likely – popped balloons filling this joyful home. My gift is that I’m taking a book and going MIA for a few hours while the mom-in-waiting is showered with love and rice-krispy-treat-rattles.

I love these people and though the mom is daughter to a queenly friend, I want to leave and make space for unfettered joy.

And those popping balloons make me nervous.

Though I’m headed out, I’ve been asked to fill out a “Wishes for Baby” blessing; to offer up what I hope the baby will know in its good life. The idea is so beautiful that I scrapped my original blog that I’d worked out on the morning run while scaring up squirrels.

Below are my “Wishes for Baby.”

I hope you know peace and unfettered love and joy that brings so much life that you can’t help but share it.

I hope you love the Kansas State WildCats as much as your grandma does. Even if you become a Jayhawk fan, I hope that you love your family, playing with your shadow, whistling, puppies, and your life in each moment. (And be unafraid to show that love.)

I hope you get the giggles so much at dinner that milk comes out your nose. I hope that you get the jokes around the lunchroom table and if the jokes are mean, you put a stop to them. I hope you get a sense of your own inestimable value and that you do not ever get a sense of entitlement. Nobody has time for that.

I hope that you become  a man of honor. That your life will be marked by healthy relationships and adventure; that you will stoop low to look in the eyes of tiny tots when you are big and that you will always be kind to small things (people, puppies, kitties).

I hope that you live with joyful abandon, a well-developed curiosity, respect for the people you encounter in your good life, and with integrity. Also, it would be great if you lived close to the sea for a while.

I hope that you never forget how much you are loved and how with great excitement you were welcomed into this world of wonder.

I hope that you laugh a lot, but never at people.

I hope you respect you. And I hope you live out respecting you and the people around you. You will trip up in this sometime, but that is part of the process. Perfection is a myth and a trap. Respect the imperfect magnificence of you and your folks, family, and friends. You’ll be fine.

…and a Wish for Mom

I hope you cultivate your interests and life while pouring into your family and that you will always “put your oxygen mask on first” (take care of yourself so that you give out of your abundance of life.)

Psalm 131, English Standard Version (ESV)

I Have Calmed and Quieted My Soul

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

131 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvelous for me.

2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, hope in the Lord

from this time forth and forevermore.

Welcome home, kiddo.