Wednesday, May 6, 2009

A new trick

The very first piece of baby clothing we ever bought for Cade was documented here. Well, he's over 10 months old and it finally fits! It looks great with the doggie hat the Keatons bought him. Pictures below.

I read the post I linked above and it reminded me of my need to be a good example for Cade. He's only 10 months old, but you can tell he's already starting to try and repeat some of the words we say. He has "dada," "mama," and "ug" (dog) down pretty well. But you can tell he's working on other sounds that he hears. So wouldn't it be a bummer if I said something improper and the next thing I hear is my infant son repeating it? Tame the tongue daddy.

In that post I also noticed how naive I was. I feel like Susie and I have learned a LOT in the last year. Our breadth of life experiences continues to expand at breakneck speed. Despite the multitude of lessons constantly presenting themselves in new ways I still feel very unknowledgeable (is that a word?). Don't get me wrong, I know how to change a diaper now. Cade has even made sure we've graduated to phase two and three of diaper prowess with all his wiggling and crawling and his occasional curious hand that gets a good grip on some poo every once in a while. But having a kid makes you feel completely helpless sometimes. It goes back to the worry issue Jesus addresses in Matthew 6. Where is my focus?

Last Sunday I had a pretty intense aha moment. I play in the band at church, so I get to see the response time at the end of each service from a different angle than most of the people in the room. Last Sunday our pastor gave an invitation at the end of the service and as we played I noticed a kid who looked about 9 or 10 years old come walking down and talk with our youth pastor for a while. After talking for a while he pointed out his dad and his dad walked down and joined them. As the song ended the dad sat down with the kid in the front row and put his arm around him with a humongous smile on his face. That is exactly what I pray for regarding Cade every day. I long to experience that within our own family. I've prayed for that for quite a while now, but actually seeing it take place within another family right in front of me was a stark reminder to stay vigilant. Cade's life is pretty basic at this point, but I pray that at some point he comes to terms with his humanness and that reality leads him to a relationship with Jesus. There is no greater decision than that.

In other news, school is now over for the semester. I'm looking forward to no classes until June while Susie's summer classes start next week. Her classes are primarily online this summer though, so we look forward to a lot of time together at home.

This Saturday we are flying down to Orlando to see Susie's brother Dustin graduate from college. We're taking advantage of Allegiant Air's direct flight from Owensboro to Orlando. Kind of random, but very handy. It will be Cade's first time to the beach. We'll take lots of pictures and you can see them right here.

One last thing: Cade has learned a new skill. Every night we have a pretty standard routine: bath, bottle, and bed. Either Susie or I will take a bath with Cade and then the other will give him his bottle and put him down. It usually works pretty well. The other night I heard Susie say, "Matt, come in here and check THIS out." We have a basketball hoop that sticks to the side of the tub with suction cups. For a while now we've showed Cade how to put the ball in the hoop and then we'll give the ball to him. He usually chews on it or splashes it around. Not anymore. He slam dunked that ball like a pro over and over. We cheered and made a big deal about it each time he put it in the basket. He even tried to get sneaky. A couple times he'd put the ball over the rim so we'd cheer for him and then he'd pull it out at the last minute to try and trick us while giving us a big smile. The next night when I got in the bath with him I wanted to see if he remembered. Sure enough, I handed the ball to Cade and he dropped it right in. It's pretty cool seeing him put stuff together in his head.

Enough talking. Here are the pictures. Thanks for keeping up with us!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How long before Susie is sitting on his lap?