Wordless Wednesday- Robot Hat + Adorable Boy = Melted Heart

He's in love

Bennett & I spent most of the day at Matt's parent's house today. Bennett always has so much fun playing with his aunts & it's a nice break from being at home for both of us.

Bennett is & always has been obsessed with music. Any music. He will dance equally as hard to Matt's hard rock music as he does to his Aunt Rebekah's violin practice CD. He just loves music. I can't wait for him to be old enough to start taking some sort of music lesson, because I know he is going to love it so much.

Matt's brother-in-law, Jake, plays guitar & has always let Bennett "help" him play it. So whenever he sees a guitar he goes carazy wanting to touch it. The last time that Bennett got to play Jake's guitar he tried to take it off of Jake's lap so that he could play it by himself. We were laughing so hard while watching him pull & pull on that guitar! Poor boy...

Today Rebekah was practicing her violin & Bennett really wanted to play it, so we got out one of the kids' guitars that Matt's little sisters got for Christmas several years ago. He was in h e a v e n. He drug that thing around the rest of the day, frequently stopping to play it like a giant bass. Aunt Bekah was kind enough to let us bring her guitar home for Bennett to play with for a while. He's going to be so excited to see it at our house when he wakes up tomorrow!

17 Months

I'm going to cherish this month because it's the last month before Bennett is a year and a half old! When people tell you that it goes so fast, they aren't kidding.

Bennett Likes:
Cars & Trucks- playing with them, touching them, saying the words, pretty much anything about them
Playing outside
Sitting on his potty
Being silly & making people laugh
Music, music, music
"Fixing" things with his tools
Reading books
Singing songs

Bennett Dislikes:
Being told he needs to go to bed
Diaper changes

Triumphs this Month:
Knows where most of his body parts are
Says many more words
Started "singing" along with some songs

Struggles this Month:
Still throwing food on the floor (when does this end?!)

Kisses

4-day-old Bennett

I cannot keep my lips off this kid's face. Those cheeks and those lips demand to be kissed as often as possible.

A few days ago, Bennett was trying to either put something in or take something out of a wall outlet. I can't remember, but really, those details don't matter. I corrected him several times and he was not listening. Finally I scooped him up to correct him closer, but as I was going on and on about how "we don't play with outlets...it could hurt you very badly...you need to obey mommy..." I was kissing those adorable cheeks. I laughed and the following conversation ensued:

Me: Maybe you would take me a bit more seriously if I wasn't kissing you while correcting you. Maybe I should kiss you less.
Bennett: NO! {with his bottom lip sticking out}
Me: No? You think that I need to kiss you more?
Bennett: {enthusiastically nods his head "yes"}

You're right, little boy. I need to hug and kiss you as much as I can, because someday...someday, you aren't going to want my kisses. Someday...I'm going to drop you off for school and lean over to give you a kiss and you are going to say, "Mom! Not in front of my friends!". Someday...you are going to put yourself to bed & not want a goodnight kiss. Someday...you're going to give all of your kisses to a girl. I'm praying a godly girl, but another girl nonetheless. So, in the meantime, I'm going to kiss you as much as I please and pray that you stop growing up so quickly!

4-month-old Bennett

Breaking Point

I've been a little absent from updating this blog lately. We were gone all last week with some youth group kids at camp and I didn't make it to a computer all week long!

Okay, here's what's going on. One night at camp, the speaker talked about rejoicing in your sufferings. Romans 5:3-5 says, "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." This verse has been kind of a theme in our life since that night at camp.

It's pretty easy to say that we will rejoice when things are hard, but not so easy to actually do. I'm not going to say that I've been suffering, things could be so much worse. Really, there aren't many people in middle-class America (albeit lower middle class) who are actually suffering, but things definitely haven't been easy around here lately.

Since we've been home (4 days), we've had several things on our cars break...randomly. None of them are that big of a deal but for some reason super frustrating (&annoying). Example? Sure. The passenger's window on my van is stuck down and refuses to come back up, so yesterday I drove 75 mph on the interstate with the window all the way down. Not that big of a deal, but Bennett didn't like this at all and decided the best response would be to scream for the majority of the 40 minute drive. Nice.

Bennett is normally a really well-behaved, go-with-the-flow, sweet kid. Enter eye teeth, vacation-vbs-camp all in 3 weeks, and generally sin nature. I know my sweet boy is still in there deep down. There are glimmers of hope, but at the moment...I'm a bit overwhelmed. Suddenly he is very opinionated, stubborn & strong willed. I guess he's always been that way but now he can verbalize it better. There's been lots of saying "no", food throwing, nap refusing & general crankiness & at least two of those things aren't coming from me.

I know that things aren't that bad. I know this. I know that it's petty that I'm so frustrated by all of this. I guess maybe I just needed to get it all out there. I know that through all of this God is teaching me patience and I'm praying for more & more every minute.

Reading back over this post, I just feel stupid. I guess that was the point. I'm not really suffering at all. God gave me an amazing little boy to raise and teach about Him. Bennett has a voice to tell me "no" and breath enough to scream with. He's lively enough to make it through a day without a nap (even if he's cranky) and we have food to put on the table for him to throw back at me.  For all that I am thankful. I have a vehicle to get me where I need want to go, regardless of the position of the window. How well am I showing Bennett Christ's love when I am so frustrated with him? How ungrateful am I being by complaining about a nonessential part of a gift of a vehicle? Perhaps our theme should be "rejoice in your discomfort"...and who is called to be comfortable anyway?