observations I must put down on paper so I don't forget them. Caution may cause too cute, sugar sweet, mommy love, induced coma.

I love it when my baby blinks her little eye lids all slow like. Her little eyelashes have finally totally unfurled and no, she doesn't have Maybelline commercial conjuring eyelashes, but they are brown, cute, and delicate. And every time she blinks while she's drinking her milk she blinks all slow, content and deliberate. It's simply beautiful.

She also has a very cute cupid bow shaped mouth. Once last week I smiled down at her and the right corner of her mouth curled up in the slightest little smile! I know this was not a deliberate smile, it was probably gas, or a random muscle twitch, but I don't care.

*whisper* She smiled at me before anyone else.

I take her little hand in mine. I ask myself, how in the world could we have been so very small at one point? Her little hands, and her little fingers, and her little fingernails are so tee-ninesy!

I really don't care one bit what other people say. I know in that operating room I felt God. I know every time I pick her up and she looks up at me and curls her little hand around my finger, and yes even when she was crying last night at 11:30 and I started to cry a little bit, I felt God. She is a miracle. Everyone talks about "the miracle of life" It's so very true.

People have asked me how I can be a biologist and support the theory of evolution but yet still believe in God, have a christian faith and even participate in "organized religion". I've had my struggles in these areas. I've documented some of my frustrations and pains with God right here. But I also considered the beautiful biological world I loved and studied as evidence that God exists, not the opposite.

The natural world is too complex. Too many things have to be just so, just right for it all to function correctly. Sometimes it doesn't, and to me that is evidence of biology (since some people at the other end of the spectrum place no trust in science. I take issue with both ends of the spectrum.) In my estimation I take the stance of God as a the watchmaker, making the world and the mechanisms that run it (the theory of evolution is so beautifully simple, how could it NOT be divine?!) Setting it in motion and allowing it to run. I won't go so far as to say he doesn't tinker in his watch on a regular basis, but the basic design functions as he created it run along, this I believe is what we call "the sciences". I think about the human body in all it's complexity and how it needs to have all parts functioning just right. Then I think about Isabella, and that she is whole, 10 fingers, 10 toes, and that she grew inside me. How that happened, I don't know. Oh well biologically I know, but spiritually, cosmically, whatever-lly, I don't know. That is my miracle. How could my lowly, little body have grown and nurtured and produced such a beautiful, amazing, little individual? God only knows.

And thats ok with me.

Thank you God.

Fox.