Jamaican Me Crazy

Summer's coming.  Can you feel it?  With that hour lost yesterday, it brought a few extra degrees into the city and with it: skirts, shorts, sweaty pits, and a whole lot of people eating ice-cream and smiling.

None of those things described yours truly, save the sweaty pits and smiles. 

The morning started off with a mad dash to church.  I've spent the past five years looking for a church in the various places we've lived, but nothing felt good.  This one did.  The place was spacious, the people friendly (and our age, with loads of little ones running around) and the message was poignant and shockingly relevant to my life right now.  Like He knew what I needed to hear to be able to exhale and say, I'm home.  

Later in the day, we took a family jaunt to Lincoln Park, to a delicious and spicy Jamaican restaurant.  Despite the fact that Brixton wore a crab on his shirt, he was the furthest thing from crabby.  

He ate with gusto, noshing on stew chicken, cornbread, white bread and beans, taking in the sights and sounds from our window booth.  Brendan and I ate fast with our fingers, like parents are wont to do when they are anxious their little one is going to become that baby, the one screaming in the restaurant.  But he didn't.  He was actually quite pleasant and I rejoice in the fact that the cranky and fussing baby from last week has been replaced by this one with smiles and waves for everyone.  

We are busy, busy, busy here in the city.  I have to write it all in my calendar to keep it straight.  Playgroups, Bible studies, things to do, things to eat.  It's a new adventure, an invigorating time in our lives as a newish family--old, but still young--finding new love and appreciation in the strangest of places.  Places we never thought we'd end up.