7-7-07

Cool date huh? I had really wished that this little baby wanted to be born a few weeks early, and he would have choosen this date - it would be a pretty awesome, and lucky birthday!

But he didn't....and it wasn't even really a particularly awesome or lucky day either. Pretty normal and mundane at our house. Oh well, that's what life is made up of isn't it? Normal days. We should be grateful for 'normal' - instead of 'insane', or 'horrible' - right?

Anyway, I made sure to snap a few pictures of Gabe for 2 reasons - one because it's an awesome date. And two because he turned 23 months on the 7th. We now officially will be tracking his age by years, instead of months. I don't know if there is an official time to start doing this...but 2 years old made the mos sense. I don't see us saying when he's 6 - "Yes, our little boy just turned 72 months - we're so proud..."

So here is our little guy one month before he hits the big 2. I can't believe how quickly the last 2 years have gone by - and that he is now a little person. He's not a baby at all - he's so independent (frighteningly so at times), and so funny!

He loves to tell us 'stories' - to tell us things we should do, or tell us things that have happened. His vocabulary is big, but he doesn't really have the grammar capabilities to put sentences together. So we have to piece together the words he's saying and ask him if that's what he means.

For instance - the other day he woke up from his nap and started blurting out all these words. And kind of jumping around. He said excitedly,

• store
• shopping
• fireman hat
• mommy
• tummy
• baby

After being completly confused (and actually, I'm still a little baffled....) I put together that he thought we should go to the store and buy a fireman hat for mommy to wear on her belly. Hmmm....our son with an active imagination (or maybe just an odd dream during his nap?)

Yesterday he threw a huge fit because he wanted to have pizza for dinner. We had pizza the night before when I had our Young Women group over, and we'd had leftovers for lunch, which he didn't want to eat at the time. But come time for dinner on Saturday - he wanted pizza - and not much else. We kept explaining to him that there wasn't any pizza left - and he kept throwing a fit. Then after a few minutes of it he told us to GO DRIVE in the CAR to the STORE for PIZZA. He had gone with Cory the night before to pick up the pizza, and just assumed we could drive and get another one. Smart little sucker.

He has also developed quite the little night time routine. He's added to the routine every few weeks with something new that we have to do. But the basics are that we:

• Take a bath, get jammies on - the basics.
• Read stories in the chair - (recliner) in the baby's room. We read....FOREVER! Generally I try to read about 20 minutes, or 3 books...however, there are definetly times we read much more than that. He keeps saying "Again! Again!" (I have a really hard time saying "NO" to reading - when I feel it's so important!)
• Go into his room, and say prayers with Daddy. He's pretty good about kneeling down, being revrent, etc.
• Get into bed. Make sure we have all the "Ginks" (binkies). It used to be 2 ginks - and it's grown and grown. He has hunted binkies all around the house - ones that he was completly uninterested in as a baby when binkies were appropriate. Tonight I think he went to bed with 4 ginks.
• Tuck him in with all of his animals and blankets. Right now he is sleeping with a large Elmo toy, a monkey named George (after Curious George of course), Stanley (a stuffed beagle), and 'Chops' (a Lambchop toy). He also has 3 different blankets - or 'Ninks' as he calls them.
• Then I have to sing to him - Cory can't do it - it has to be 'mommy'. And I have to sing 3 songs - in order. We start with "I am a Child of God", then "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam", and end with the 'apple' song - which is "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" (he calls stars APPLES - because of the part of the song where it goes, "Up above the...." - somehow when he was little it became "apple" - much easier to say.)
• To top it all off, when I'm singing the above mentioned songs I now have to rub his back, or his 'gack' as he calls it. He rolls over and yells at me until I do it - every time. And Cory can't be a part of this - it has to be me. (and don't even ask how I about died when he told me that "Chops - Gack!" meaning he wanted me to rub his Lambchop toy's back. I told him no, if Chops needed her back rubbed - he had to do it. And he did!) I'll rub his back for the 1st two songs, and then I sing the 'apple' song from the bedroom door.
• As soon as the last song is over (sometimes before I finish the last word) he says, "Wuv you! Bye!" and he goes down pefectly fine until morning. When it goes so smoothly I'm ok with all the steps I have to do - he doesn't throw a fit, and he stays in his bed - it's worth singing and rubbing his back.

Anyway, he's a sweetheart, and we are so blessed to have him in our family. I had no idea when we first brought him home from the hospital almost 2 years ago - how much I could possibly love someone. And now with the fact that we're bringing another baby home - I can't even fathom how much love our house will have. It's amazing to me how the Lord provides for us, and our love for others just multiplies. I'm not worried about whether or not I'll be able to spread my love thin enough to reach everyone - instead I'm nervous about having so much love for all of the people in my life. I just can't imagine feeling so much love - it grows so much! I am so richly blessed, and I almost don't feel like I deserve to have as much love in my heart as I do. Anyway....thanks to all of you who also add to that love in our home, and in our lives!

So I guess that 'normal', 'boring' days are perfect, because with those days we can remember how lucky we are every day. It doesn't take a special date, or special event - we are lucky just to be alive and to have the lives we do!