Wilson James

Wilson James Grothe is 8 months today. That is so hard to believe! We woke up to snow all over the ground and it has been snowing all day since. You never know what you are going to get around here. It will probably be 70 degrees tomorrow.

Back to Wilson. Some memories I want to keep locked away of my darling little man:
* How loves to dance to any type of music. If he is sitting, his torso, arms and head are all bouncing around. If you are holding him his entire body is moving in a syncopated flail. It is really funny to watch
* He bangs his hands on the highchair causing any of his food that remains on the tray to flop around like fish out of water
* He lets you feed him food, but he always wants something on his tray that he can feed himself too.
* The noises he makes are so "boyish." I am not sure how else to describe it, but I feel like there is a significant difference in the noises he creates at this age compared to the ones Lillian made at this age.
*He rolls around all over the place to get where he wants. He leans over and gets in the crawling position only to land on his tummy and move his arms and legs like he is trying to swim.
* He loves his jumper that hangs in the door. He gets excited as soon as he sees me hang it up.
* He ADORES his big sister and she adores him! They are so excited to see each other in the morning and after naps.
* He basically skipped right over baby food. He doesn't like it. For weeks Daniel and I tried to get him to eat it only to have all of us become frustrated. Since he started eating "big people" food, he pounds it and he is the last one to be done at meal time! I have kind of felt bad, thinking my sweet boy has been starving.
* He is now sleeping through the night!!
*Socks are constantly being pulled off. I am glad the weather is getting warm enough that people will not think I am bad mom if my son is out of the house with no socks.
* He is sooo content and smiley! I love him so much. Daniel and I are so blessed to have our darling little guy as a gift from God.

Thats it for now. Daniel may have more he wants to add later.

"I'm big now..."

So a couple of stories I have been trying to keep in my brain so that I would not forget.

1. Lillian and I are practicing appropriate responses to requests made by other people. The other day I asked Lillian to do something and I gently reminded her that she could respond with "Yes ma'm or Yes Mommy." Lillian thought for a few moments and said "I am going to say Yes Ma'mmy, like yes mom and yes ma'm." Clever I thought, and agreed that would be okay too.

2. This morning as I was getting Wilson dressed for church I hear Lillian hollering up the stairs "Lisa, Lisa, LISA, lisa...." After she arrived in Wilson's room I looked at her and replied "who am I to you?" and she said  "Mommy, but I am big now so I can call you Lisa." I chuckled and explained that I got to be "Lisa" to hundreds of people but I only got to be "Mommy" to her and Wilson, thankfully she obliged.

Wilson has gone several nights now sleeping through the night! It has been glorious. I feel so relieved and just so much more patient. I know I was surviving those long nights of waking up several times a night but I am confident that I was not being the best wife, mommy, friend, etc. that I could be. Glad there is grace.

Daniel spent two nights with Eugene Peterson last week at his home in Montana. Eugene translated the Message Bible and has written forty-one books, and many of them have really challenged and encouraged Daniel. Some of you have asked about his time--I am sure Daniel will write about it in the near future after he has been able to digest his experience. For now I will share a picture with you. Eugene informed Daniel that several years ago after he concluded his time teaching at Regent University in Vancouver he made a vow to be done with posing for pictures. We are glad he decided to break his vow.  :)

Well I am one happy mama! My 7 month old little (big) man has slept through the night for the past few nights!! This is a major deal in my house considering it has been over 7 months since I have gone to bed and not had to get back up out of bed multiple times in the night. Hopefully now I will have a little more energy to keep up with a few other things in life, such as a blog :) Lord please let this be the new normal!

Daniel is up at theMILL tonight. They meet on Friday nights. We (the kids and I) have made it a fairly regular routine to go up and visit Daniel for part of the evening. I wish I could be up there the whole time but it is just a little bit challenging to make it the whole night. I am sure we could do it but then we pay for on Saturday with tired kiddos.

Lillian has been saying some fun things lately. She cracks me up.  She has turned into my grammatical coach the last few days. A few days ago I was putting her sock on when she informed me that there was something bothering her in the sock. So we pulled the sock off and found a thread in the sock. I pulled it out and we started over again. She then asked me what was in there. I told her "there was a thread in your socks." She stopped for a second and said "No mommy, its sock, it was in just ONE sock." Yesterday I was getting Wilson dressed. When I did this he started fussing at me and I was just rubbing on him and kissing on him and I said "I sorry, I am all done" Lillian looked at me and said "Mommy you are supposed to say I'm sorry not I sorry." Okay then, you are right.

Often times in my journal I right a "Favorite Moment" from my day. Lately my favorite moments have involved Lillian and Wilson just giggling away at each other. Lillian loves to make Wilson laugh and Wilson loves his big sister so they will just be laughing out loud. It is music to my ears!