It's OK to just maintain

The past week of our life was profoundly uneventful, and that’s not such a bad thing. In fact, I consider it a pretty good thing. There are plenty of days and weeks in our lives where it seems like nothing changes. Sometimes, I’m tempted to get nervous about that. Does stability mean that something is wrong? Are we sliding toward an oblivion of mediocrity if we don’t experience some kind of change during a week of our life? I don’t think so.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to marvel at even the most minute changes and developments in our little guy. If he makes a funny new sound or adds a few more hairs to his scalp, rest assured that I’ll be there to wax eloquent about how awesome it is. Everything is significant. All of the little accomplishments along the way matter. It’s all worth celebrating and shouting from the rooftops.
So, what happened this week? Well … uh … let me see here … uh … I don’t know. I guess nothing happened this week. He didn’t learn any new tricks. I don’t have an insanely funny story about how he did the most awesome thing ever done in the history of human babies. We did not pass any developmental milestones. He’s not sick, broken or otherwise pitiable. He’s pretty much exactly the same little dude this week that he was last week, except maybe a little fatter.
I have no eye-catching headline today. Shock and awe sell newspapers. Emotional cliffhangers bring blog readers. Tales of intrigue sell books. This story has none of those things, so it probably isn’t worthwhile. Except that it is.
Life has seasons. There are seasons of change, and there are seasons of stasis. The posts over last several months have been examples of the former, but this week was an example of the latter. We are in a season of stasis. I’m sure it will be short-lived, but it is peaceful while it lasts. I don’t feel a need to urge change to happen in order to feel normal again. I relish the peace in our family while we have a short reprieve from all the changes.
The great insight to take away from a week in which nothing monumental happened is that not all weeks need to be monumental. In fact, we should count our blessings when we have a week where we just maintained the status quo. The life of an infant is filled with changes that happen at break-neck pace. Having a week that allows you to catch your breath is indeed a blessing. That’s all we did this week; we kept our head above water and caught our breath. And it was a great week.