And the Winner Is...

...the adorable Joelle Sacra, whose guess on when the baby would be born was off by a whopping 14 minutes!!! As her prize, she got to hold Baby Shav! :)

Well, not really. I mean, yes, she got to hold Shav (with a little help from her mom Julie)...but no, that wasn't the prize. Here's the real prize package (and I had no idea that a 4 year-old would win it, so some of the items are a little "mature" for Joelle...maybe the whole Sacra family can benefit from it)... :)
The contents of the prize package include some of my favorite cravings from this pregnancy: chocolate raisins, peanut M&Ms, hot buffalo wing pretzel pieces. But that's not all, folks! We also have a fabulous book, Beautiful Home on a Budget by Emilie Barnes and Yoli Brogger, and a very nice edition of my all-time favorite devotional, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers--such profound thoughts in this book! One of the things I really appreciate about this particular edition (which both Jeff and I have a copy of) is the space on each page for individual reflection and journaling. I've learned from Jeff to date each page with the year as I write on it; that eliminates the guilt if I don't stay consistent with the devotional all year long (which I never do) because if I do some of the pages in 2009 and then come back to it in 2010 and re-read the same pages or do some fresh ones, it will be just as meaningful, if not more so. And then when 2015 rolls around and I pick up the book again, I'll be able to remember where I was spiritually in the preceding years, as well as add notes from my journey in the pages that are still blank. But back to the prize package...the last item is a small mirror from the Middle East (gotta have something from our Israel roots!), perfect for carrying in a purse to use on the go. I know Chris Myers is especially bummed now that he didn't win the prize. :)

Thanks to all who played along and ventured a guess! It was fun...and showed how little we know about some things, like when exactly a baby is going to be born. ;)

Speaking of how little we know--or how little we remember--I'm not sure how I could have forgotten how much time it takes to nurse an infant, but apparently I did forget because I'm astonished by the huge percentage of time that I'm spending simply feeding Shav (and by feeding, I mean the whole feed on one side/try to burp/change diaper/change clothes if needed/feed on the other side/try to burp again routine we've got going). I know the time for all of that will lessen; but for this phase of his life, we can easily spend an hour doing that. When that's repeated 8 or 10 or 12 times a day, that's a significant chunk of the day! It's silly, but I have to remind myself, "What else would I rather be doing? What is more important than this?" And the obvious answer is, "Nothing."

Tonight as I walked to my dad's office to fix up a package to send in the mail tomorrow, I was thinking back to this night in December when I had some bleeding and thought I might lose the baby. The thought of not having Shav pierces my heart and makes me whisper again the mantra I chanted immediately after he was born, "Thank You, God...thank You, God...thank You, God...thank You, God..."

I know I'm slow with writing more of his birth story. I haven't forgotten at all, just didn't find the time today to devote to it. Maybe tomorrow??