On Saturday, we took Caleb downtown to help load the container to be sent to Zimbabwe. We weren't sure how this would work out considering that it was right in the middle of his morning nap, but he lasted for about 2 hours. He was in his stroller most of the time just sitting there and watching us and occasionally someone would come over and pick him up. Needless to say, he had lots of people to watch working away. If you haven't heard any updates about the country of Zimbabwe as a whole, it is complete chaos. They're estimating that in the matter of a couple months, nearly 5 million people will be starving. There are 1.3 million orphans now (more than 1 in 4 children in the country of Zimbabwe are orphans) and the average life span has dropped from the 70's (10 years ago) to the early 30's for both men and women due to the AIDS epidemic. Please keep the country of Zimbabwe in your prayers and my dad especially as he is traveling there on Friday with a group from church.
On another note, I have been pondering the following verse a lot this week: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it" -Proverbs 22:6. Caleb has started to throw fits whenever he doesn't get his way and I am totally not ready to have to discipline! He seems way too young for this. I have been putting him in his crib (lights on, door open opposite of what it is at nap times) for a minute or two when he does this but he just seems so young! On the other hand, I don't want to continually enable his behavior and then deal with it when he is 2 or 3 because by then I am sure it will be much more of a struggle. I have been reading about the appropriate way to mold a child's behavior but you find so many contradictions when reading...it is very frustrating. My mom and friends of ours have been telling me that I am doing the right thing, but I am totally not confident in myself since I have never done this before. I wish the writer of this Proverb (Solomon I think) would just have given us the exact instructions for this training! Isn't there a complete guide to parenting out there somewhere???
Kevin and I listened to Chuck Swindoll's tapes on Parenting when I was pregnant with Caleb and he said that the key phrase in this verse is "the way HE should go", meaning every child is different and what works for one might not work for another. He also said that keeping the child's temperament and their interests (when they are older) in mind whenever parenting...letting your child be their own person and not forcing them into this mold that you had in your mind of how they should be. There is a fine line between authoritative and authoritarian parenting...I just want Caleb to be allowed to be a baby while also learning to obey us, God's instructions, and other adults.
I thought this picture was too precious not to post...
This is a video of Caleb walking with his walker. He gets ahead of himself, but seems to enjoy it. He gets impatient after a while and would just rather crawl, so I think we've still got at least a month of two before he is going to be ready to walk.
Smile...
Goldilocks & the Three Bears
Uncle Brad dressed up as Obama...Raises the "politicians kissing babies" thing to a whole new level involving tongue! :) This picture, of course, definitely does not indicate who I will be voting for on Tuesday!
Candace, Blake & Luke
Caleb and his cousins Evan, Emma, Ethan, & Luke
At the Fountains
Such a happy bear!
Caleb and his friend Carter
Papa Bear and Baby Bear
Our little pumpkin is over 2 feet tall!
Fall Family Fun!
Just being silly...you can see the underground slide behind us
Playing in the corn! Caleb loved it!!!
Picking out our pumpkins
Daddy and Caleb on the big John Deere tractor
Caleb, London & Abbey...just a few seconds before Caleb was trying to eat the mud. He is definitely all boy...the whole time we were trying to pick out pumpkins, he wanted down on the ground to crawl!
Smiling for a picture before heading home
