Miscellaneous Thoughts on Humility

This morning, Fred and I were so pleased that for the first time since the boys were born, the time change adjustment went smoothly in our favor! We were out late last night at a church function in Hamilton and the boys got to bed quite a bit later than normal, but we were anticipating them waking up at their normal body clock time of 7:00am, which would now be 6:00am. We were thrilled when they ALL slept until about 7:30am ... the NEW time! We felt we were handed a very special gift from God this morning!

My lesson in humilty came about 20 minutes later, though. Here I was basking in the joy of having the boys sleep so long and adjust so well to this new time change and God wanted me to know that it was nothing of OUR doing, but all in His hands! I needed to be rid of a bit of pride this morning, I guess, because as I said, 20 minutes later, I was wishing that they WOULD have gotten up at 6:00am!! Christopher woke up with a leaky diaper, so I got a bath ready for him, plunked him in and then let Stephen join him, just for a little bit of fun. I sat back to watch the two of them play and was just loving watching Christopher sitting there smiling away at me. Uh ... Christopher sitting there smiling?! Christopher doesn't just sit in the bathtub! He's usually slipping and splashing all over the place! I leaned over to do a little interaction with him to see what was going on and just about threw up! He wasn't smiling at me! He had been taking care of a bowel movement right there in the tub! By the time I realized what had happened, the pieces were starting to break apart and get the water quite murky. I yelled at Stephen to get out quick and tried to grab Christopher before he reached for any more little "floaties" to play with! At this point, I was really getting grossed out! Between Fred and myself, we managed to get the two boys out of the tub, got the major remaining chunks out of there, got the boys rinsed off under the shower and then dressed. I then spent the rest of my leisurely (?!?!?!) Sunday morning disinfecting the tub and all the toys, including the one Sesame Street tug boat that we just happened to borrow from the library yesterday! What a mess! So all my pride in having the boys sleep in and adjust to the new time was solidly put back in place as I cleaned up that disgusting bathtub this morning! Believe it or not, though, we were still ready for church with about fifteen minutes to spare!

After this morning's services at church, I was once again reminded that I am nothing without God. We were in the babyroom getting the boys packed up to go home for lunch. I had just changed Christopher's diaper and sat back to finish my conversation with my friend. Christopher flipped from his back over to his stomach and was getting ready to crawl away when another older girl standing right behind him lost her balance and landed directly on his back, smashing his entire body into the floor. Of course, I'm watching this all happen in slow motion and I can't even make a move to stop the action from completing. Christopher just lay there on the floor motionless for what seemed minutes, but was only mere seconds and then he started to scream in obvious pain! I instinctively dropped to my knees beside him and scooped him up into my arms, to which he responded with an even greater scream and a rigid, and then limp body. He didn't seem to want to focus and was just screaming with a wide open mouth. The whole thing was so fast, yet so disturbing, that everyone rushed over to see if he was ok. I, of course, was losing composure and was just begging everyone, "Pray! Please pray now!" I didn't know if he had cracked his back or snapped his neck or what! I was crying so hard I couldn't even squeak out what happened when Fred came running into the room. Thank the Lord for my friend, Caroline, who was there and saw the whole thing and could speak for me.

We did our best to check Christopher out, once he calmed down a bit, and came to the conclusion that he must have just gotten the wind knocked out of him pretty good. Fred tried to get him to stand up to see if he was ok, but he just screamed at that, probably more because of the fact that Fred put him down than anything. I watched him all the way home to make sure he didn't start convulsing or anything because he seemed strangely quiet and unmoving to me. Thank God, once we got home and he saw his little push toy, he scrambled out of Fred's arms and started racing around the kitchen! God had to show me in another scary way today that He is in control of my children! He's got it all under control and I need to keep trusting him! I really don't like these scary lessons when it involves my children, but for some reason, God is wanting me to learn something from them anyway! Christopher is quite back to normal, and while he'll never remember what happened this morning, I will always have that vivid memory, and the promise that God is still with us!

On a lighter note, I have to share some more Stephen funnies with you. Last night in bed he asked me why his skeleton hurt. When I asked him where, he said, "You know, the part that protects my heart?" I guess he learned a new vocabulary word because of all the Halloween stuff that he's noticed this year.

Then at lunch time today we were talking about when Grandpa and Grandma might come back up for a visit and I told the boys that I would call them today to see if they'd like to come up next weekend. Without looking up from his meal, Stephen so certainly replied, "I think they'd be delighted to come." That comment sure cracked us up! Since when have we ever used the phrase that they would be "delighted" to come?! He must have picked it up from somewhere.