Finally...a baby and a blog

Tada! Are you impressed by our blog? Probably not, but this will be the easiest way to provide updates on Baby Davolt's progress during this pregnancy and after he or she joins us. I plan to update after each appointment for all you fabulous family and friends whom I don't see each day (which is most of you). Many of you will recognize the picture at right, given that I posted it on Facebook and emailed to many of you. This is from our 12 week ultrasound.

At the moment, I am just over 16 weeks and discovering my wardrobe options are narrowing. Today I wore a dress that I purchased last summer, and could hardly breathe most of the day. I guess it will have to stay in the closet until next summer...or fall. I went to a district meeting this evening and one of my colleagues asked if I was pregnant today, which was a first! Of course, my belly seems to come and go as today I had several colleagues comment that I'm not even showing. Oh well...

I have my next monthly appointment on Monday, January 10th. I plan to ask the doctor about when we can find out the sex! I will post update after the appointment and hopefully a photo.

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Tradition

At no other time of the year do I think about "tradition" more than during the holidays, from Thanksgiving through Christmas. I do like the sense of timelessness that traditions afford, reminding us of past Christmases and the people or places we cherish most. As much as I love the traditions of years past and years to come, I think it's healthy to miss or change traditions every now and then. My own childhood was filled with traditions for Thanksgiving and Christmas, as was Jeff's, but I also recall the experiences when traditions were put on hold or changed, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes for reasons beyond our control. I suppose it's the same for all of us as we grow, move, lose, and gain. Not that I go out of my way to disrupt any plans for my family now, but rather, to remind us that life doesn't always go the way it has before and we can enjoy the time together no matter what. Having our own family caused Jeff and I to decide on what would be...

Raising Boys

I absolutely love having two boys. There is an energy and excitement that definitely keeps me young. When meeting other parents with all boys there is always an unacknowledged kinship and assumption that we deal with the same rowdiness, crudeness and overall chaos that is a house of young boys. For six years now I have always said I am so thankful to have all boys rather than girls. There is this assumption that boys are so much easier than girls. That as a father girls are so much scarier. That things like braiding hair, princesses and unicorns, teenage love, menstrual cycles, and protecting sexual innocence are so much harder for a father to navigate as a parent of a female. But what if this assumption that boys are easier, that they are less work, that boys are not as high maintenance to parent as girls is partly responsible for toxic masculinity and so many of our societal problems that can be traced back to the patriarchy? I think about...

Christmas 2020

Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let your heart be light From now on Our troubles will be out of sight As a result of the pandemic, the model train festival we typically enjoy this time of year was canceled (thus no pictures with Santa). We missed family and friends this year. The fun energy of the last few school days before Winter Break was not quite the same over Zoom. I missed singing carols in church during month of December. As the season progressed, I couldn't help but reflect on other times in history where celebrations were small and often just a nuclear family. Times and places where travel was too difficult or too expensive to justify leaving home. For those generations of families, the traditions were as simple as reading the Christmas story together or baking a special bread. In so many ways that was our Christmas this year and by seeking the joy in each moment, we found our hearts lighter. We visited our favorite local tree farm to find THE TREE. We...

The Davolts

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