Bumps...

Hello everyone out there in blogland. Guess what? Cade continues to grow and develop and learn new things. Believe it or not, he has not settled down at all. He is a picture of perpetual motion. And just in the last couple weeks I think we're starting to see the presence of the sin nature that we're all stuck with. He's really started testing his limits on certain things. For example, he bites Susie and me and others occasionally. If you're holding him he'll sometimes try to bite you on the shoulder. Or other times he'll try to bite your finger or arm. We've started telling him "no" when he bites, and I know he knows what he's doing. The reason I know is because after I tell him "no" he'll take my hand or arm or whatever he was just biting, put his mouth on it (without biting), and look at me and give a sly smile. Or sometimes we'll notice him try to put things in his mouth that just don't belong there. So we'll take whatever it was out of his mouth and tell him "no" and give him something else to chew on or play with. If he can, he will go directly to what it was we took away from him, pick it up, and put it on his chin or cheek, look at us, and give that sly smile again. Sweet and innocent? Not all the time. But we still love him. We're just going to have to start talking more about how we want to handle disciplinary situations so we provide a consistent front. Did this have to come so quickly?

On a cuter note, he's also been a lot more playful lately as well. I just love getting to interact with him. His repertoire of noises and syllables continues to grow as well. And he's becoming more and more coordinated in his movements, especially pulling himself up on things and moving around. Walking probably isn't that far away. It's so much fun being a dad, especially a dad to this kid. I know you guys come to this site for the pictures, so here we go:

To start off, here are a few pictures from my sister Amy of when we met her and Paul in Fort Pierce, FL.

Contemplating life and just how stinkin' cool I look in a fauxhawk.

Cade has no fear. Not of heights, not of flipping around, not of being upside-down. He likes to ride on my shoulders and he especially likes it when I pretend like I'm dumping him off behind me.

This was the only one out of like seven where we were all looking at the camera, but it was a fun photo shoot.

During Memorial Day weekend the Keaton girls dropped by to say hi to Cade. He has more girls calling on him already than his dad ever did.

He definitely knows how to ham it up for the camera.Speaking of hamming it up, he definitely hasn't forgotten how to scrunch his nose up.

Last week we were fortunate enough to have my cousins Chris (on the right) and Brian stay a night with us on their way from SoCal to New York. I hadn't seen them for a few years, so it was great catching up. They hadn't met Cade, so he got some play time with his second cousins (Is that right? If they're my cousins does that make Cade their second cousin?). Chris and Brian's parents are moving to Colorado soon, so hopefully that means we'll be able to see them more often during the holidays.

Here's a random picture of Cade being helpful around the house.

Last Sunday afternoon was the annual church picnic, and here's a picture of Edie taking Cade down the slide. Cade digs slides, and I think he's pretty fond of Edie and her sister Allie too.

What's a picnic without some sort of messy food? Here he's getting all covered with baked beans (and other things I'm sure). He liked the barbecue fare and stuffed his face.

This last picture is of a bruise Cade gave himself this morning. I was just walking out of the kitchen to go run when in rapid fire succession I heard: "Oh no!", Big Bump, the dreaded split second of silence that feels like an eternity, SCREAM. With his increased mobility and curiousity, he keeps putting himself in more situations where it's possible to fall and hit something. I mentioned that he's getting more coordinated, but he still takes a lot of falls. In this case he smacked his cheek on a shelf. I've been impressed with his toughness and pain tolerance, but it definitely took a few minutes to calm him down after this one. A couple of nights ago I was playing with him and he had pulled himself up on a window sill near where Chili was laying. He's become more adept at letting himself down from a standing position. He used to just fall, but now he can kind of hold on and start the descent before letting go so he lands a lot more softly. It's graceful compared to how he used to sit, but it's still not a picture of grace. This particular time he must have heard something right as he let go, so he kind of spun and arched his back as he fell backwards. I don't know if his head hit the window sill or if he landed weird on Chili's paw, but he came up crying with blood all over his mouth. It scared me at first until I could tell it was coming from his upper gums. He was a pretty tough little guy with that one. He was just about done crying by the time I got the blood wiped off his face.

I guess these instances are sort of a microcosm of what parents go through everyday on a broad scale. Can any other parents relate? On one hand, Susie and I want to shelter him and protect him from anything that could hurt him. I hate seeing him in pain. On the other hand, we want him to explore and experience things, even if it means a bump or bruise along the way. I guess there's a fine line somewhere in the middle that contains a healthy dose of protection along with a long enough leash to learn some things on his own. At this point, we're still feeling our way along that line and trying to figure it out as we go. I'm sure that line sits differently for every person, and maybe that line will change as Cade grows. He's already shown signs of being stubborn and strong willed, so maybe he needs to learn some things on his own. I don't know, and I'm sure we'll come to points all throughout his life where we have to decide how much leash to let him have. We've never done this before, but we're relying on God for the right wisdom at the right time.