Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Monday, December 15, 2008

Moving words

Everette and I just returned from a Memorial Service for the little baby I posted about earlier. The service was incredibly moving as one would imagine. But I was particularly struck by two things.
1. The letter that our pastor read written by the father. He actually posted it to his blog, which I appreciated because I am going to link it here and because I was so moved I wanted to read it again.
2. our pediatrician was there. I knew from talking to Justin and Kristen that they took Kara to Dr. Miller too, but I was so impressed by the fact that she came to this 2 1/2 mo old baby's funeral. She only could have seen her a handful of times but she came-not just for the viewing, but for the service. This only served to confirm why I love my son's Dr. If any of you live in Lafayette and are looking for a pediatrician, I highly recommend Dr. Johari Miller.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Grieving

Some friends of ours lost their three month old baby girl today. They knew this day was coming but it doesn't make the pain any less. Everette and I have been so touched and burdened by their situation and the way they have carried themselves with such honesty and grace. I know they would covet any prayers you would say for them.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Bunches and bunches of stuff

Before we get too much further into the Christmas season, I thought I should catch you all up on Thanksgiving.
As usual we spent the holiday in Selma Alabama visiting Everette's two grandmothers and his aunt. I must say that this was one of the best trips ever. We have been blessed with one of the most easy going babies on the planet. The total trip is ten to ten and a half hours (that is if you don't stop for long periods of time) each way. The total number of minutes Jonathan spent crying were less than 20. He literally sat in his car seat and looked out the window for an hour. It was incredible. We are so thankful.
One of Everette's grandmothers is for all intensive purposes confined to a wheelchair and living in an assisted living facility. His other grandma can still travel somewhat and joins us every year for Christmas in Lafayette. So our trip to Selma is pretty focused on letting Grammy see Jonathan as much as possible. Of course he charmed everyone in the assisted living facility. We took a bunch of pictures and video.



Any of you who have spent any amount of time with Jonathan know he is absolutely fascinated with wheels. It did not take long (a few minutes) before he was trying to drive Grammy's GIANT-wheeled wheel chair.



One of the sweetest moments was on Friday when we took Jonathan over to see Grammy again. Like any grandmother she wants to hold Jonathan, and like and 14 month-old he does not like to sit still. Grammy has no shoulder movement and no arm strength (literally I think Jonathan is stronger than she is). This makes holding him difficult. However, Jonathan will sit still for a long time if you feed him Gerber puffs (a.k.a. Baby Crack). So we sat him next to Grammy and fed him puffs. What happened next was completely spontaneous on his part (well the first time anyway, we coaxed him to do it again for the camera).

In this clip it is neat to see how Jonathan "figures things out".



And finally, just because he is so darn cute, another video of Jonathan as he plays with his truck in Grammy's room. It is fun to hear all the noises he makes, more on those later.