The Lord has really shown Himself the last couple of days.  Ella’s OT appointment this week was wonderful – she’s getting stronger and is able to stand for longer periods of time and is building those little core muscles! We’ve been teaching her how to climb the stairs (not something you really want your toddler to do but in our case it’s a real blessing) and we’ve found that if we bend her leg and put her foot flat on the ground she is able to push herself up to the next step.  One reason we’ve come to love our house so much is that it’s totally self-contained for the girls.  We have two staircases, one in front and one off the kitchen, and as you come up the back stairs you pass the playroom on your way to the bedrooms.  There is a series of catwalks instead of actual hallways, so the upstairs is almost entirely in the open air.  This is great because if you close the baby gate by the playroom and the one at the top of the front stairs (the prom stairs, we call them), the girls can go wherever they want and be completely safe.  The one small issue is that there are two sets of small stairs (only two steps) separating the guest area and the playroom from the catwalks, and Baby Ella hasn’t quite figured out how to get down these stairs the “safe” way.  You can imagine my surprise as I’m on the phone with my friend Kim today and I look over and she is crawling up the two steps to the catwalk!  She needed one teeny push at the end, but she did it, and it was so fun to witness that with a friend in earshot.  We are very encouraged by this week and have really felt your prayers and support through this difficult process.  I think about something all the time – that it’s no accident we are going through this with our family so close-by.  I am extremely fortunate to have a willing mom keep Ella for me every now and again.  This closeness is all new to me, and I don’t take it for granted for a second!  I was so worried I wouldn’t find friends as wonderful as my Chicago crew – and have prayed so earnestly for a community here in our new city.  Almost 6 months to the DAY we moved in God has blessed me HUGELY in the way of friendships.  What with my college/post-college friends, neighborhood moms, MOPS, our new lifegroup (or small group, as we called them in Chicago), and lovely new friends as a result of mutual friendships…well…my cup runneth over. Saying goodbye to my Chicago friends was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  It really was a great time of mourning for me.  I know that sounds dramatic, but 10 years…that’s a long time to share with a group of people.  Especially when you go through life’s major milestones together. My new friend Allison, who lives in my neighborhood, is a gorgeous mom of 3, ranging from 2 to 10.  She and I hit it off immediately – I think I told the story about her picking me up for a mom’s night out back in August.  I had contacted her through our HOA website about a playgroup – turns out that playgroup stopped meeting years ago, but she invited me to go out and we were instant friends.  The little things, like being a lover of Louis Vuitton (as I am) and carrying 20 tubes of MAC lipglass in her purse (as I do) got us talking, but her sweet spirit and kind heart are really what connected us as moms and as women. At the beginning of the week I was feeling pretty down, and I posted on Facebook that I “felt defeated” and “could use some extra prayers today”.  Not five minutes later, dear Allison called me to make sure I was ok.  It was weird timing, because at that moment I just needed some encouragement, a listening ear…and God answered that prayer. So all of this to say, this “season” we are in is requiring a lot of support, kind text messages, and sweet friends checking in to see how we are doing as a family – and how Ella is doing.  Believe it or not, motherhood can be very isolating.  You spend your day giving and giving and giving to these little people and often times all you want is a conversation with an adult, or a glass of wine with another mom at the end of a hard day.  To be able to connect and be understood…well, there’s nothing like it.