Luke celebrated his first birthday, has learned to eat with utensils and drink from a cup by himself, is starting to take steps on his own, and just today, pushed himself to standing from a crawling position. He vocalizes several words, including: that, apple, dada, all done, outside, up, nigh-nigh (night night) car, mama, and nuh (no). He also has started shaking his head "yes" and saying "yeah" anytime we ask a question. I constantly ask him things about our activities and am often amused at his enthusiastic agreement, especially when it's in response to questions like, "Are you ready to take a nap?" He loves to be outside and play with his push-walker on the sidewalk, and is fascinated with any animal. We've gotten big grins and giggles in response to seeing anything from a neighbor's dog to a lamb at the farm to a wiggly caterpillar on the sidewalk. He even played with a fish that we had caught at the farm and put in a bucket, squealing with delight every time he reached in to grab it and got splashed. Luke loves to watch the action around him and get wrapped right up in it - if the bigger boys are making a racket and being noisy, he squeals and laughs and claps or bangs the table. Or like tonight, when Daniel said something in a soft whispering voice, he brought his voice down to a whisper as well.
Isaac had his fourth birthday, which we celebrated with a trip to the zoo with Grammy, Papa, and Kayla. He has learned to ride his balance bike, and is getting ready to start pre-k. He constantly brings smiles to our faces, sometimes intentionally but often just by doing and saying whatever comes to his mind. For example, in a recent moment of deep thinking he asked me, "What do you think Jesus' decycles looked like?" And whenever Luke is sleeping and I tell the big boys that I need to check on him, Isaac will suggest I just "check the baby thermonitor!"
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| Isaac posing with his projects at his end-of-school art show |
He has shown us such a tender, sweet side, often thinking about what others need and jumping in to help out before being asked. Sometimes he'll bring a cup of water to someone else or share a snack or special treat, and he loves to get to help with Luke. Though there's no doubt he is all boy and has some very dramatic and intense moments, his caring nature is a precious thing to see.
I tend to try to use this blog to record our fun, sweet memories, but certainly there are many trials along the way as well. I try to remember that we see God at work in both the joys and the struggles, and a recent breakthrough in an ongoing challenge we've been dealing with has been an awesome reminder of His power at work in our lives as well as a source of much praising on our part.
Our sweet Isaac has had increasingly strong reactions to many foods for some time now, and when we would take him to our pediatrician or allergist, the only answers we got were bottles and tubes of antihistamines and creams to try to combat his symptoms. Unwilling to dump drugs into his system to just cover up the reactions, we made some major changes in our diet to try to help his body heal and get back into balance so he could overcome those sensitivities, and covered it all with prayer for direction and healing.
We saw many positive changes and improvement in the year that we changed our eating habits but he was still having reactions to some things, so we began working with a naturopath in March. She told us upfront that her goal was to get his body balanced so that it could heal itself - music to our ears! Through some more blood tests we learned that his immune system was so flared up that it was reacting to many more foods than we realized - including beef, chicken, pork, carrots, green beans, citrus fruits, and others that came as quite a surprise, along with dairy and eggs. So we began a process of detoxing his system and eliminating those foods from our diet for a time - a challenge for all of us, as we were not accustomed to centering our meals around fish, but we tried to maintain a grateful attitude and proceed with much prayer.
A follow-up blood test after 45 days of this new diet brought some amazing news - most of Isaac's levels of reactivity had dropped significantly, some by 50-60%. There are still some things that we're avoiding, but all fruits and vegetables are well-tolerated by his system now, as well as chicken, pork, and lamb. We feel like we've seen a positive change in him, too...his stuffy nose is clear and his itchiness is calmed down significantly.
I give all the credit for his progress to the Lord. Through this process we've learned what a delicate and perfect balance was put into place by our Creator - one that only He can truly understand and restore. We have been faced with a problem that we couldn't fix with our efforts, but had to pray through and trust God's sovereignty over the situation. I was definitely stretched as the purchaser and preparer of food with the drastic changes in our diets, but now feel like we have learned so much about eating more healthfully and have all benefitted. We have eaten out significantly less and the variety of foods, especially fruits and vegetables, that I have prepared for our meals has expanded drastically. So we are looking ahead with anticipation, praying expectantly for complete restoration of his body's balance and trusting the Lord's care in his plan for Isaac.
We finally celebrated Caedmon's birthday with a fun trip to the zoo in April; he got to invite a friend along and I made a "creature power suit" for each child, fashioned after the special suits worn by their favorite cartoon heroes on the PBS show "Wild Kratts." They had quite an adventure! The next month he finished up pre-k, learned to ride a bike without training wheels, and is now excited about starting kindergarten.
It's an amazing thing to see glimpses of a developing faith in your child, and I was touched recently when I overheard Caedmon praying out loud in his room. He had a scrape from a fall off his bike and was praying that it would be healed, and then also prayed for Isaac's body to be healed. And even though he typically has strong feelings about doing things his own way and in his own time, he has blessed my heart several times recently by taking the initiative to help out, cleaning up his room or the playroom, or vacuuming without being asked.
We (along with the rest of the worshippers in our service) got a chuckle out of Caedmon during the children's message this past Sunday. The children's ministry director was talking about the kids' favorite super heroes and super powers and asked if anyone knew what Spiderman could do. My sweet child, who has evidently led a much more sheltered life than the other kids when it comes to these characters, piped up enthusiastically, "He kills spiders!!" That's just fine with me; the things he has stored away in his mind are so fascinating and I hope increase his awe for our amazing Creator, as he loves learning and talking about animals (especially ocean dwellers) and their habitats, life cycles, and if they're carnivores or herbivores, predators or prey, mammal or reptile, if they serve as a pollinator, if they're nocturnal...his vocabulary and understanding amazes me. One afternoon we were looking at a bird in the backyard so I got out my college bird identification guide, which he sat and flipped through for some time, searching out and correctly identifying several species of birds that he'd learned about previously.
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| Caedmon with his art at his school art show |
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