No longer and infant

I am not sure when a baby is no longer an infant but I would say that our darling little Annaka has reached that point. I feel that she has grown so much this month. You can tell that she has been watching and learning but this month, WOW!

This month Annaka has:
~Started Solids
~Stopped Solids (I think it was a little too early for rice cereal)
~Found her thumb
~Discovered where she is ticklish
~Had her first very bad diaper rash, Yikes!
~Went to her friend Logan and Zephan's birthday parties
~Really gave her head a good smack on the hardwood floor
~Rolled off a bed
~Decided her schedule was not working for her anymore (she has yet to tell me her new schedule)
~and.... Drum roll please...... SAT UP without assistance!!!

The last one was the big one and I guess when I look at this list it isn't full of a ton of firsts but for some reason our little lady just seems so much more "grown up". Everyday more and more of her sweet little personality is developing and blooming. She is such a happy little girl she loves to stare at people and stare and stare. She does not give her smiles away easily. She is always watching and listening. She loves to dance around to music. She loves to play with seltzer bottles. She is so much more interactive and has become so much more fun.

I think that I am finally starting to feel like a mom. Annaka will prefer me over other people get upset when I leave the room or leave her with someone that she is not familiar with and believe it or not it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I am not just some lady with the "liquid gold" aka breast milk that plays on the floor and makes funny faces at my daughter. I am glad for that, maybe one day I will just want a minute of peace away from my children but when that day comes I hope that I can look back on this blog and remember what it feels like for Annaka to want me over other people. Right now I also want to remember that one day when she is cool and out and about I will wish that she still preferred me over anyone else.

Dear Little Annaka,

You are so sweet. I do wish you would sleep a little longer at night but I am thankful that you have healthy lungs and a healthy appetite! I really delight in you and your sweet, sweet smile. I am thankful that with me your smiles are never limited and always come in abundance. I love that you love people, I hope that you never loose that. I pray that you use your sweet little life to always glorify your Creator.

I really, really love you so much my darling little girl.

Mommy

Nurturing Nature

I think that until you have the opportunity to watch someone grow right in front of your eyes you aren't lucky enough to really be able to understand how it all happens. I am watching someone everyday all day long and I still don't really understand. My point of view does come with the belief that there is one Creator, God and I believe the Bible to be truth. That being said.....

I think that when you become a parent the verse "Train up a child in the way he should go" begins to become more relevant, for obvious reasons. What does it mean, does it mean that you are suppose to tell your children about Jesus well yes, but what else? Does it mean you are suppose to be this over protective, over bearing mother, cause I'll do it! Or does it mean that my little one that the Lord has entrusted to me has been created by God right down to the her tiny, sweet giggles. That I am to help grow and nurture  all that God has already created her to be? I think that it means just that. I believe that we are who we are that we have been knit together in our mother's womb by the Creator and that nothing went unnoticed.  I think that my daughter likes to be held and cuddle 95% of the time not because I held her so much as an infant but because that was where she was happy and if it made her happy I obliged when I could. I think that Annaka cries out when Kyle and I exclude her from what we are doing because she likes to feel included. I believe that her sweet, easygoing disposition is not because we let people hold her or because we cart her around with us so she has learned to go with the flow. I think that she was just made this way! So I believe that all that we are good and bad the Lord knows and He created us this way with our strengths and our weakness.

So really I don't think that Annaka is a people person like her mom or quiet like her dad. Maybe she is, I do think that genetics plays a part. But really I think that she is her own little person that God created and that he for whatever reason has picked us to be her parents. I think that no matter who her parents would have been she would have been the same wonderful little girl.

I am of course am not an expert on parenting by any means, I just want my daughter to be all that God has created her to be and I want to make all the right choices by her, of course I know I will not but I can try! So for that reason I look to the word of God, the Bible, for all my answers. Some of them are easy to understand some take time, some I still don't understand. I guess though I don't need to know it all now, I just need to know it when the situation arises.

Thank you Jesus for my sweet little girl and for her wonderful personality that I have yet to unfold. Please give me the wisdom to help her be all that she is meant to be. Give me patients and understanding.