366 Days with Hudson

A few weeks before Evie was born someone challenged me to try taking a second of video every day in her first year. Being a sucker for a moving montage, I gave it a go. It became a visual way to help us remember – and to help us turn our hearts to God in thankfulness – as we looked back on Year 1.

Of course, having done it once, how could I deprive Evie’s brother from having the same  first birthday present?! So here we are: 366 Days with Hudson, a video scrapbook from his first twelve months outside the womb (…and, yup, it was a leap year this time!).

Parenthood is a strange thing. A huge privilege and a massive gift, but also an awesome responsibility (and I can imagine – in the end – forming the parent about as much as the child!). The strangeness seems particularly manifest in just how different people’s experiences will inevitably be. We can side-look and compare and contrast, but we all have different situations and factors at play. The same precious calling, but with different highs and lows.

And then there’s just how mundane and routine it is to care for and spend yourself on a little person in ‘the little years’. Days that can be long (and nights even longer!) – but when they’ve outgrown yet another set of clothes you can begin to wonder just where the time has gone.

Sure, there’s the moments you want to Instagram, but then there’s all those moments that are just kind of ‘same old same old’. Moments where you’re grateful to God for the energy to keep going – and keep loving. Another nappy change (probably just a few minutes after you did the last one); another meal to make (and feed and wash-up); another washing-load looking despairingly at you from across the room.

We’re already realising with #1 that the challenges of the second and third year are so different from those of the first. I’m reliably informed by those who are navigating the teenage years that this only multiplies. In other words, buckle-up: it’s only just beginning. But, phew, as Christians have declared through the years: ‘God is our helper’.

As we’ve relived moments and memories, it’s helped us realise how much we’ve been blessed by others too. They say parenthood is a journey best walked in community. Huddy spent his first five weeks in north London living amongst our epic college community, before we then upped sticks and headed 278 miles north to begin life here in Barrow. A new place, a new community, and a new church (and a local zoo!) – yet full of folk with much love to give as we slowly adjust (or struggle to adjust!) to the changes of going from three to four (most definitely harder than it looks).

And through it all the same God is with us, whose love is sure: Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Happy Birthday, Hudson!