Micah

Well, I have not posted a specific update about Micah in quite a while, and since our first baby is "not a yittle baby anymore," and actually growing into a full out boy, I figured I should jot some things down. Be forewarned, this post might contain some bragging on the part of Mama, but what's a blog for if you can't tell everyone how proud you are of your children? Matt and I feel like we went through the "terrible two's" with Micah around the age of 15-26 months. Micah has always been pretty mild tempered and never threw many fits (at least not the kind with kicking, screaming, head banging, etc.) but he was very quirky, orderly/ritualistic and failure to do things exactly the way he liked them would result in lots of tears that took a lot of patience. The hard part was he couldn't communicate what he wanted, so it was always a guessing game for us. I have no problem with his rituals (you should see all the "night night friends" we have in their proper order before bed) because I am like that too, we just wanted some help from him as to what he wanted. Micah will now often correct us or put things away when they are out of place, and he always notices if I have done some rearranging or cleaning. He told me one day "good work Mama clean the stairs" because he could tell that the rails were shiny. Just today he reminded Matt to take off his shoes and then he proceeded to put them in the right bin by the door. I do absolutely love this part of Micah's personality because I like things done a certain way and things in a certain order too. It will be/is nice to have such a great helper.

Anyway, we have been just absolutely blown away the past few months by our little boy. Now that he has better language skills, he can ask us for what he wants. He has learned the Bible verse well "Do all things without complaining and disputing." We started teaching him that from the time he was old enough to oppose us with his attitude (circa 9 months) and even though he still tries manipulation sometimes, the Holy Spirit has really worked in his heart to accept the rules his parents give without screaming or crying. By the way, as a side note: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work" Never underestimate the power of God's word on your children, even babies. The Holy Spirit can and will speak to your child through God's word. We try to use Scripture as much as possible with our children for this very reason. Ginger Plowman has a good resource called "Wise Words for Moms" if you feel incompetent (as I do) to just throw out a Bible verse for every misbehavior. She also has a verse of encouragement so that our children will not become discouraged at the pointing out of their sin. Micah loves to tell us "the good news is: Jesus died on the cross for my sins!" Micah has also taken his role as big brother pretty seriously. Although we see flashes of anger every once in while when Owen isn't playing with a toy the "right" way (there is that quirkiness), for the most part he has accepted Owen as one of us, more than that, he knows he belongs and doesn't want to leave him out of anything. Don't get me wrong, he still loves morning nap time so that we can do things that are hard when Owen is awake (like play Memory, crazy eights, play dough, etc.) Another thing Matt and I have noticed is how smart Micah is. We could always tell he was "a thinker" and even coined the phrase "the thinking face" when he was a baby (he always had this expression that seemed as though he was always trying to figure everything out). He loves to learn and lately can't get enough of it. It started with letters and learning capitals and lower cases, but that wasn't enough; he had to know what these were for. He began spelling numerous words. Matt made a spelling list for Micah, and it now has over 250 words on it. Matt also taught him phonics, and now he literally picks up books and reads. I am amazed by this because my job before I had Micah, I was a tutor/teacher. Micah can read on a Kindergarten level at age 2 1/2. The crazy thing is, we don't push him; he figures most of it out on his own. We put him in bed at night, and sometimes until midnight he is reading books, saying his ABC's frontwards and backwards (with and without the sound they make,) spelling his way to ten, counting backwards from 20 and trying to figure out why it is eleven and twelve instead of "0ne teen" and "two teen." It will be interesting to see where he goes from here. I know Matt can't wait to teach him to play chess! I love to have Micah help me in the kitchen because of his cleanliness and organizational skills. I taught him to put the silverware up from the dishwasher (after I do the knives of course!), and he loves to help scoop and pour when we make cookies.

I just wanted to share a tiny piece of out sweet little boy and hopefully guard our memories by writing some of them down. It is crazy the little details that you forget, and it can be very frustrating, at least for me. I love this time and don't want to forget a minute of it.