Josiah Vs. Daddy’s Razor

May 9, 2008 @ 2:09 pm by Pressed

One of the interesting things about being a new parent is all of the fun things your baby teaches you. Now you would think that it would be the other way around. When this all began I figured it was the parents job to teach their children. While I still feel that is true to some degree, I also believe that our children have quite a bit to teach us.

Lesson #1 - Patience. Coming from someone with very little patience I speak from much experience when I say that you are forced into being patient when you have kids. Josiah isn’t always the most cooperative child on the face of the planet. At one point in his life it was easy to dress him and change his diaper. Now it is an all out war. You literally have to strap this child down to the table in order to get a diaper on him. If you don’t, he will flip over, sling poo everywhere and grab the window shades. We have broken window shades as proof of his destruction. Even if you strap the kid in, he can still wiggle his way out. Even after you get his diaper on, trying to put clothes on him is a challenge. We think we are just dressing our son, he thinks its the end of the world and he has to fight for his life. How do babies get so strong anyway?

Lesson #2 - Baby teeth are sharp. I’m not exactly sure why God equipped babies with such dangerous weapons, but baby teeth can hurt you. If you are going to stick something in Josiah’s mouth you best get your fingers out of there before he chomps down, or you could pull back a bloody stump. Every now and then he attempts to see what mommy or daddy tastes like. This is not a pleasurable experience and sometimes it can be rather painful. His little teeth are so sharp he has actually punctured a hole in his lip on a couple different occasions.  He has even felt the wrath of his own sharp teeth by chomping down on his own tongue. He has five of those little sharp teeth already and his sixth tooth is coming.

Lesson #3 - Babies move at the speed of light and without making sound. I never could have imagined how fast Josiah could be. He can grab something he shouldn’t have in a blink of an eye without you seeing it, hearing it, or knowing it until it is in his mouth. Prime example, the other day I was getting in the shower and at the time Kendall had to take care of something else, so I held Josiah until she was finished. While I was holding him I decided to get my water running and at the correct temperature. I leaned in, turned the shower on, and looked back at my son who had my razor hanging out of his mouth! I use the Gillette razor that has 6 razor blades on it and seeing him with the head of that razor all the way in his mouth made me shout out loud. I had to slowly remove it from his possession and luckily he didn’t cut himself, but my goodness! He was right there in my arms and I never heard a thing. He was able to pull the razor off the hanger, turn it around, and shove it in his mouth within a manner of seconds and without me even knowing.

With all of that he is still a cutie! We got his 9-month pictures taken. Just click on the pictures below to see the larger image.

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The Marathon Continues

April 28, 2008 @ 12:13 pm by JD

At the beginning of this year, I set a goal for myself to read 3 books per month.  Really, it was a New Years resolution, but I hate New Years resolutions, so I’ve just repackaged it as a goal for myself.  4 months in and I’ve been able to keep up (even though a recent flurry of activity has challenged it).  Here’s what I’ve knocked out so far:

January

Desiring God by John Piper

When I Don’t Desire God by John Piper

Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missonal Church by Mark Driscoll

February

I Am Not But I Know I AM by Louie Giglio

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die: Or the Eschatology of Bluegrass by David Crowder and Mike Hogan

Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow

March:

Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna

The Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll

The Cross-Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney

April:

Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears

Jim and Casper Go to Church: Frank Conversation About Faith, Churches, and Well-Meaning Christians by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper

The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God’s Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin by John Piper

Although a few have hit me in the wrong way or didn’t captivate me to the utmost, I’ve enjoyed reading all of them.  My favorites so far would have to be the books written by Driscoll.  There’s something about his approach to Christianity and life in general that just resonates with me.  The biggest disappointment was Jim and Casper Go to Church, which is a book about and Penacostal preacher and an atheist who go around the U.S. visiting a variety of the country’s most well-known churches.  While I like the concept and the insights that these two had, the writing style killed me.  It had too much of a Leave it Beaver tone to it.  Read the book and you’ll see what I mean.  The other one that was so-so to me was Pagan Christianity.  When Viola goes into some of the histories of different church practices, I loved it.  When he started giving his opinions……not so much.

May is coming up and I’m open to suggestions on what to read next.  A few books on my Amazon cue include They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalists Journey with New Calvinists by Collin Hansen, and Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul.  Drop me some suggestions on what I need to read next.

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Someone, Call a Doctor!

March 26, 2008 @ 8:15 am by Kendall

This past weekend was an interesting experience for our little family. We were involved in 2 Easter cantatas, which Josiah also had to be in attendance for; as well as had 2 Easter dinners. All this combined with lack of sleep, bad eating habits and weird weather, made for a hard weekend.

Needless to say, now our little cutie pie is sick, AGAIN!! This time, though, he is sicker than he’s ever been. He is coughing continually throughout the night, sneezing, and is having difficulty breathing. Combine all these symptoms together, WITH three new teeth coming in, and what you get is a very unhappy baby. Josiah has been such a trooper, though, and we are very blessed that he has such a good personality.

I scheduled him a doctor’s appointment for today, Wednesday, only to be reminded by my husband later that I was already subbing! I had to call the secretary this morning so that she could get a sub for a sub…CRAZY! I feel so bad about this whole deal and I really should be home with my little guy, but I had already told the school I would be available, and both girls in the library are gone today.

Needless to say, our lives have been slightly altered, at least for the time being. There is, however, one plus in this whole story, Josiah has started sleeping better through the night, in spite of the sickness!

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OUCH!

March 22, 2008 @ 10:17 pm by Pressed

Josiah is cutting teeth.  Three teeth at one time to be exact.  He has one bottom tooth that has come out already, the other bottom tooth is just getting ready to poke through and one on the top is getting ready to poke through as well.  Needless to say he hasn’t been a happy baby over the past few days.  Tonight things were made a little worse when we were at Applebees.  We took Kendall’s mom out to dinner for her birthday and while we were there Josiah fell forward in his high chair and slammed his face in to the table.  I could tell he had hit hard cause I heard it.  Unfortunately it was his mouth that hit the table and later on we looked in his mouth at his gums and his upper gums are bruised.  I’ve never actually seen bruised gums, but apparently it is possible.  He hit his little gums on the table right in the place where a tooth would be coming in, so I hope nothing was damaged.  Poor little guy.   I decided to look up bruised gums on the internet to see what we could do or if there might be problems.  I’ve discovered that if you look up bruised gums you get to hear about a lot of child injuries.  I decided to stop looking up this particular subject after reading about a kid falling and hitting his mouth on a toilet and reading about how his tooth was all twisted funny after that.  *Shudder*  Anything having to do with mouth pain really bothers me for some reasons.   I’m sure this is just one of many injuries to come as he gets older and learns how to walk.  Kendall and I just feel kind of bad for him since he is hurting from cutting teeth and then bruises his gums on top of that.  Ouch…. 

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The Question Of The Day (2) - Does Josiah Look Like Mommy?

March 4, 2008 @ 3:22 pm by Pressed

As a new daddy I often think about things that I can’t wait to teach my son. It is going to be fun to take him fishing for the first time and to teach him how to ride a bike. But I’ve also realized that there are some things that just come natural to guys. Just the other day Josiah was laying in the floor next to his grammy. She was watching him play when suddenly he rolled over on his side, stuck his butt in her face, and let out on amazingly loud tooter. It was classic! I didn’t even have to teach him that. And if you think that was just a fluke, he did it to his momma too!

So what have I learned from this? I’ve learned not to stick my face anywhere near the hind end of a small child. Now, on to the question of the day. Today’s question is does Josiah look like his mommy? Take some time to look at the picture above of Josiah and then look at the two pictures below of Kendall. Look at yesterday’s post as well. What do you think???

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