Hunter's new word

Hello my long neglected Blog. I have missed you. Look for more updates soon, but for today, here is a video of my adorable baby boy. His vocabulary is growing by the minute.

17 months old!

Hunter is 17 months old! He has been sick for the past week with an ear infection. The only good to side to that was that we were able to get him weighed at the doctor's office. He has gained weight! At this appointment, he weighed 23 lbs and 5 oz. That is much better! Hopefully he will keep gaining! :)
He loves graham crackers, yogurt, apple sauce, milk, and his antibiotic (ha!--guess they make those things super sweet).

Hunter has 10 teeth completely through and four that are half way. He has another 2 or 3 that are right at the surface but have not cut yet. Whew... that is a lot of teething!
He talks a lot-- a lot of gibberish but has more words that are clear lately. He can say:
Watch
Dog
Bear
Go
Woah
Yuck
Ball
Ouch
Good to go (good to go to go to go)
bath
apple juice (ahhhh juuuuu)
Duck
Cookie
Choo Choo
Cracker (caaacaar)
Car
Shoes
Up
More
God (Gahhhhhh)
and my personal favorite: diaper (he says Bop-per and it is the cutest thing I have ever heard!)

Today I did my workout after he was awake. I set up the living room with all his toys and set up the gate so he would have to stay in there with me. He was too cute. There is one part of the workout where I do squats and then lift weights over my head. The girl on the video says, "down, up, down, up." Hunter watched really intently and then started bending his legs and then standing up while saying "up!" He did this over and over with me... looks like I have a new workout buddy!! :)

Cute Stories

One early morning about a month ago, I woke up to Hunter screaming. Not just his normal morning cry. It sounded like he was in pain. I flew to his room and in my groggy state I saw nothing out of the ordinary, so I figured he just wanted to cuddle. So I brought him to bed with me. For a few minutes, he was very happy cuddling, but then he got worked up again. Now I knew something was wrong. I looked him over and realized his thumb was STUCK in his hair.

Hunter has an adorable habit of twirling his hair around his fingers to soothe himself. I guess he twisted and curled so much that his thumb got stuck this time. By the time I figured what was wrong, his thumb was a bluish-purplish color. Josh and I freaked out and then grabbed scissors. I tried to cut as little of his hair as possible to free his thumb.

You would think that would teach him, but no.... this has happened two more times since then. Once I had to cut a bigger chunk of hair and the second time I was able to work it free with no cutting.
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We have been teaching Hunter a few of the catechism questions. The first one is: Q: Who made you? A: God. He picked up on this very quickly, but for the first few days his answer was something that sounded similar to "CaaaaCaaaaa." Oops. Now he says, "Gaaaaaaaa." Both adorable, but the second one sounds much better!!!
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Hunter drops his food A LOT during his meal times. He thinks it is sooo funny. We are trying to teach him that this is not appropriate, but in the mean time we are cleaning the floor a lot! More than once now, as Hunter has been playing, he will walk over and grab a tissue and then walk to the floor by his high chair and rub the carpet with the tissue. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing, but his daddy got it right away: he has seen us clean the floor so many times he thinks it is something he should do, too!

Roaring and Coloring

So today Hunter and I colored together while listening to the Wicked soundtrack. We had so much fun! I had to film him... he is beginning to understand how to make lines with the crayons instead of just dots. It is adorable. Plus, he likes Wicked.

I edited the video from today with one from a few days ago where he learned how to "roar."

Enjoy!!!

16 months

At 16 months, Hunter walks more steadily, mimics verbal sounds more, and is BUSIER than ever! He is so much fun, and quite the handful! He weighs the exact same as at 15 months (22 lbs, 9 oz) but seems taller. He is such a fun baby! :)

Perfecting Ourselves to Death

We have all seen people we would label “perfectionist,” and in fact most people have the tendency toward it. Our culture feeds our desire and deep inside we tend to believe it is possible. Perfect appearance, perfect thoughts, perfect achievements and a perfect household elude us in this life, yet the pressure remains to seek them anyway. Dr. Richard Winter has done an incredible job of analyzing the issue as well as discussing the way our culture--both secular and within the church-- perpetuate the problem. Winter discusses genetic tendencies, relational modeling, pressure from authority figures, and internal fears that create and motivate perfectionism. There are many dangerous results of this pattern of thinking such as depression, eating disorders, and anxiety. Dr. Winter describes the problems and then discusses the pride and the shame that tend to drive people to be driven perfectionists or defeated perfectionists.

Right at the point the reader may feel that it is hopeless to overcome this pervasive issue, Winter describes the importance of knowing yourself in order to grow. “When someone begins loosening the grip of unhealthy perfectionism they must have a strong and reliable sense of identity and purpose, built on a foundation of reality and truth, that will allow them to grow toward a healthy pursuit of excellence,” (p. 147). At this point, I expected to find a series of personality tests and examples of how to learn about oneself. Thankfully, Winter took the healing deeper by delving into the Gospel in order to understand oneself. He did this very carefully. “What really matters is what God thinks of us. We have a given or derived identity--not an identity that we create for ourselves,” (p. 153). Winter goes on to describe the tension of being created in God’s image yet living in a fallen world. We can finally stop the race to perfection by resting in the perfect acceptance of God. “This is finally our greatest comfort; Christ has us in his grip, and somehow he will complete the task of making us perfect and bringing us to glory,” (p. 175). Christ is the ultimate answer to our perfectionism.

The way Winter turns the book to focus on Christ makes this a unique source for Christians. Winter has a medical background and fully diagnoses the issue from a mental health standpoint. He does not give the Gospel message as an easy answer for the issue, but rather as a true hope for those who long to change. The point is emphasized that we will not ever attain perfection on this Earth. In God’s definition, perfection is a “Christlike character” (p. 169) and this is what he is growing us toward. We are able to change and Christ takes us down that path toward healing. The process is slow, over time, which may frustrate the perfectionist who wants “the goal achieved immediately or not at all,” (p. 78). God calls us to trust him and rely on him.

The Healing Path

The Healing Path by Dan Allender is the best book I have ever read. In an honest manner, Allender addresses the abiding questions of the heart regarding living in a fallen world. He does not sugar coat the reality of pain and struggle as humans walk this Earth, but he gives a perspective that is rich and provides more hope than is usually offered in self-help books. Allender takes the reader down a path that invites deep reflection on his past in order to learn to truly dream for his future. On this journey, hope, faith, and love replace the guilt, shame and doubt that have taken up residence in the human heart. Allender’s understanding of humanity fuels deep exposure of both the sinful ways people deal with their pain, and the effects of evil inflicted upon them. After walking the reader though how to get on the healing path, Allender then teaches how to bring this healing to others. He gives great, simple advice on how to engage others with hope and love, gently pursuing them in the midst of their stories. Throughout all of this, Allender shines a light upon the goodness of God, even in the desert, that is based upon God’s desire to have relationship with his people.
A lot of Christians seem to believe that trusting God means letting go of past pain and pressing on toward God, pretending everything is good. The general thought is what has passed is gone and the only thing we have power to change is the future. To this Allender says, “Many Christians seek to escape the hard task of facing damage; they want change without an honest look at life. The result is not only an incomplete redemption, but worse, a shallow grip of grace,” (p. 108). This poignant phrase, “shallow grip of grace,” unfortunately defines much of the Christianity in America. We believe that following God will bring a sort of euphoria to our lives. We are afraid to press into pain. In reality, “...redemption touches us more deeply than tragedy. But without tragedy, there could be no redemption,” (p. 128). God takes us into the desert and then mercifully woos us there (p. 138). “No matter how we have acquired our wounds, we all need the good news of the healing power of redemption: Evil meant our suffering for our destruction, but God meant it for our good,” (p. 6).
This is a radical, counter-cultural perspective that Allender is promoting. He argues that regardless of whether or not we are acknowledging it, everyone acts out of their past. “Everything hinges on the past. We will project the past into every new moment and either repeat our past themes of victimization or marvel at the work of God in redeeming us in spite of our questions and doubt,” (p. 147). When I think about it, I really agree with Allender. The aspects of my past that I desire to hide from are actually pivoting points around which my life revolves. I self-protect to ensure those topics are never addressed. The past so governs my present that I am robbed of true hope, true dreaming of a better future, and true relationships. I cannot grow if I am this committed to comfort (p. 149).
“We must so hunger for a different tomorrow that we risk losing today to gain it,” (p. 149). Hope will grow as we commit to honestly working through our past. When we are satisfied with how life is going, we do not risk. God uses the pain and sorrow in our lives to invite us to struggle with Him. The desert then becomes a place of seeing God afresh and in new ways. Our hearts an be opened to his gentle calling through the change to our soul that comes from struggle and pain. Instead of repeating the same cycles of pointlessness in our lives, God calls us to examine what is going on in our hearts and change the direction of our lives. True hope “invests in the present with the teeming, brimming abundance that is our promise of glory not only in heaven but now,” (p. 157). Hope is not a denial of the past, but an acceptance of both the struggles and the evil that have been interwoven into our stories.
By asking, “Which stories will win my heart?” (p. 131) we can come to see pain for what it is and choose to allow God to shape and form us through it. We can begin to be governed by stories of redemption instead of sorrow. We are able to open our hearts to the possibility of hopes and dreams. This will open us up to live in true community with others. Working through our pain with God will lead us into a deeper relationship with him than we ever thought possible. We are able to have a sense of joy that is based upon God rather than something we ourselves can muster. “Joy is not an absence of struggle or sorrow, but the taste of the presence of God as he surprises us with his gracious love, whatever our circumstances,” (p. 184).